Call Mr Robeson returns to Playhouse

From Carnegie Hall to The Playhouse. the award-winning ‘Call Mr Robeson’ returns to Londonderry on Thursday (May 29).

The play - which received a standing ovation at New York’s Carnegie Hall in February 2012 and was staged in London’s West End in October 2013 - will be performed at The Playhouse on Thursday May 29, 2014.

This rollercoaster journey through actor/singer Paul Robeson’s remarkable life highlights how his radical activism caused his downfall. It features some famous songs (including a dramatic rendition of Ol’ Man River), some of his speeches, and a defiant testimony to McCarthy’s Senate House Un-American Activities Committee.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Written and performed by Liverpool-based playwright and singer Tayo Aluko with piano accompaniment by renowned Belfast pianist Scott Flanigan, Call Mr. Robeson is making a welcome return to The Playhouse, having been performed there in June 2010. It was chosen by The Guardian’s theatre critic Michael Billington as his top pick for things to see in London in January 2011.

It has sold out several established theatres around the UK, including the Lowry Studio, Belgrade Coventry, Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, The Bolton Octagon, and most famously at the last ever performance at Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre in June 2011 before it was closed down for redevelopment. During October 2014, it enjoyed a 4-week residency at the Tristan Bates Theatre in Covent Garden, where BBC Radio 4’s Loose Ends presenter Clive Anderson was it and later described it as one of the most memorable plays he had seen in 2013.

Related topics: