First Look: Strange Fruit at Bush Theatre

Production images have been released for Caryl Philips’ Strange Fruit, directed by Nancy Medina which is at Bush Theatre until 27^th July.

Strange Fruit is part of Bush Theatre’s three-year ‘Passing The Baton’ initiative introducing or reacquainting theatregoers with the artists of colour who carved their way through British playwriting with distinction, paving the way for many of the writers and performers who appear at Bush Theatre.

The cast is Jonathan Ajayi, Rakie Ayola, Debra Michaels, Tilly Steele and Tok Stephen.  The first ‘Passing the Baton’ production, Leave Taking by Winsome Pinnock, directed by Madani Younis played to capacity houses in Summer 2018 and was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 earlier this year.

‘I go half way round the world and back thinking I’d made some sort of discovery and come back to find the same damn lies, the same white lies, the same black lies.’

Alvin and Errol can’t picture much of a future for themselves. They’re young, black and living in England in the 1980s, with an entire country and political system set against them. Instead they focus firmly on their past – the sunny Caribbean and heroic father they left behind when their mother brought them to England twenty years ago.

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But when Alvin returns home from his grandfather’s funeral in the Caribbean, a new version of their past emerges, and the two brothers are caught in a desperate struggle to unearth the truth about their existence.

 

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1. Jonathan Ajayi as Errol in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray

Jonathan Ajayi as Errol in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray

2. l r Jonathan Ajayi as Errol and Tok Stephen as Alvin in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray

l r Jonathan Ajayi as Errol and Tok Stephen as Alvin in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray

3. l r Rakie Ayola as Vivian and Debra Stephens as Vernice in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray

l r Rakie Ayola as Vivian and Debra Stephens as Vernice in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray

       

4. l r Tilly Steele as Shelley and Jonathan Ajayi as Errol in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray

l r Tilly Steele as Shelley and Jonathan Ajayi as Errol in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray

5. l r Tok Stephen as Alvin and Debra Michaels as Vernice in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray.

l r Tok Stephen as Alvin and Debra Michaels as Vernice in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray.

6. Tilly Steele as Shelley in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray

Tilly Steele as Shelley in Strange Fruit at the Bush Theatre. Photo credit Helen Murray