‘The day you were born Black was the day politics was made your thing.’
This is the alarming reality for every Black Brit of the past, present and likely the future, who has been forced to realise how our skin colour has been politicised for a lifetime.
It is also the powerful tagline for the buzzy new Brixton House play everyone has rightfully been raving about.
Black Power Desk transports you back to the 1970s, when political unrest was bubbling to the surface and covert operations under a New Scotland Yard special unit threatened to destroy London’s resilient Black community from within.
The beauty of the show is that it centres the stories of sisters Celia (Rochelle Rose) and Dina (Veronica Carabai), two empowering characters who embody the fact that Black women are not a monolith, as they experience two very different journeys in the same fight against racial injustice.
Not only is it an aspect of Black British history rarely explored in any space, but it has been beautifully crafted as a musical thanks to a dynamic team including writer Urielle Klein-Mekongo and director Gbolahan Obisesan.
It’s not an easy subject to digest, but it is, of course, handled with the utmost care.
One minute you’re completely horrified by the language used by white police officers to describe Black people, and the next you’re head-bopping to the soothing notes of Lover’s Rock while the cast whine in their 70s flares and florals. It’s jarring but in the best way as the two extremes do well in complimenting each other throughout the runtime; when you need a moment of light relief, the stirring score kicks in and transports you to another world.
The play’s Dramaturg Gail Babb, who was charged with bringing the vision to life, told Metro: ‘It’s a really important moment in history and period of time that we are telling on stage; that is such an honour and privilege but it also has to be done with the utmost respect and doing your research is a really important part to bringing truth to it.’
For many, Black Power Desk will offer the first real insight into the efforts of the Metropolitan Police’s specialised unit, which was tasked with undercover surveillance of the UK’s Black Power movement as it gained momentum.
It’s not often talked about, and it was even a learning experience for Gail, who admitted: ‘I already knew about the Mangrove Nine but… The one thing I didn’t know anything about was the undercover policing of that movement, and so that was quite an eye-opening moment. Then my mind went, of course, the Met, the state and powers that be were doing what they could to prevent that [resistance] as that’s what we see happening now, but I hadn’t thought about it before.’
Presenting it through music was particularly important to the team, as Jasmin Skeete, the play’s assistant director, explained: ‘Having this production as a musical automatically makes it more accessible because you’ve got the music, dance and movement, and it helps to tell the story in a more engaging way.
‘What I really love is that, yes, you’ve got these heavyweight themes that we are exploring and intense and emotional moments, but then you’ve also got this juxtapose where there’s humour and we really get to celebrate what it means to be Black, to laugh, to have community around you and develop really lovely friendships.
‘It’s really endearing because you don’t often get to celebrate Black people in this way.’
Gail added: ‘It mirrors who we are as a community. It’s very rare to go into Black-majority spaces and there not be music woven into our conversation, our food, our struggle and our love. There has to be music.’
Having the story focus on the experiences of sisters Celia and Delia was as pivotal as the music, if not more.
‘The things that really drew me to this story were that it was telling it through the lens of the female perspective, which isn’t the case in a lot of theatre out there,’ Jasmin admitted. ‘It really speaks on family and sisterhood.’
For Gail, Black Power Desk ‘had to be a sister story’ as the idea of leadership in the UK is often heavily male-centric.
‘I know a lot of people who think about the Black Power movement, think it was Darkus Howe leading when actually it was Altheia Jones-LeCointe,’ she stated.
With its focus on the Black community in London during the 70s, Black Power Desk will naturally earn comparisons to Sir Steve McQueen’s BBC series Small Axe, which was released in 2020 and featured a film about the Mangrove Nine. However, it actually had no influence on the theatre production as Gail, for one, has never seen the anthology series and made a conscious effort not to consume the episodes to ensure the play was told in its own unique way.
Hopes are high that Black Power Desk will get a transfer over to the West End with a longer run, and while the team would be elated, they are focusing on its current tour around the UK, for now.
‘Audiences are engaged and leaving happy, so it’s exciting to see how it’s evolving,’ Jasmin said.
‘It’s all about the importance of being exposed to moments in history that were potentially unheard of or unknown, and being able to go away and let that sink in and let it inform you as a human.’
Gail added: ‘One thing I’d like people to know is we have been here for a while working for a better world for us and other people, and the work that is happening today was built on the shoulders of those who came before us.’
Following its run at Brixton House, Black Power Desk is now playing at The Lowry in Salford from October 16-18 and at the Birmingham Hippodrome from October 22-25.
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