No Mean Street Reviewed

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Arlington is a macho, womanising, gun welding, drug dealer, shirking his paternal responsibilities and dreaming of a life of plenty. Stagger is a comic, never serious, would-be Yardie, whose homophobia knows no bounds. Jean is, in effect, a single parent, struggling to raise herself and her son in the best way possible. And, as for young Marcus, will he grow up to follow in his father’s footsteps?

No Mean Street is a piece about today. Everything today. Like the industrial wasteland of our inner cities, the stage is minimal, filled with the remnants of consumer durables, sharp glass edges and metal. Characters dart across the stage and around each other, responding to incidents and crises as and when they occur. Lives have events falling across each other, incidents clashing into each other, occurrences crawling over each other, and the whole comes together as a realistic reflection of life.

Paul Boakye’s physical drama is a vehicle from which to develop further the many topics that arise from the storyline. A character is labeled a “batty-bwoy” and beaten up by drug dealing Arlington and Stagger because he is different. A possible follow-up workshop on homophobia and stereotyping. A woman prostitutes herself to get the drugs on which she has become dependent. Follow-up: drugs and their relation (if any) to unsafe sex practices. The list could go on. “But the play could just as easily work on BBC television. It really is that good. It’s just so important that we listen. – BLGC News.

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