The Canary and the Crow
Arcola Theatre, London

THE CANARY and the Crow kicks off with an explosion of heavy hip hop and a challenge from actor Nigel Taylor to clap, stamp, wave our arms and chant.  We love it and are undeterred, even when the chanting changes to the rugby favourite “oggy, oggy, oggy.”

It’s unsettling, though, to hear black music accommodate this white man’s chorus. What does it mean? That’s the point of the play, in which The Bird is a deprived black boy who finds himself winning a scholarship to a high-achieving school.

His single mother is ecstatic, while the boy is mystified. He's about to discover that being black and different in a community of patrician boys is a ceaseless struggle. “I see things differently from you,” he says to a largely white young audience. “There is nothing you can tell me about being black.”

Yet, to survive, he must find crossover. And just as rugby chants can merge with ska, soca, funk or grime, so experiences over time can seem to erase differences.

But something fundamental remains. And when The Bird is asked to choose the better voice from the canary’s sweet soprano — the white Rachel Barnes — and the crow’s dark song is immersed by Nigel Taylor in the beat and bass of black music, we know the outcome.  

Both capture beauty. Both, the boy can appreciate. But the black crow, he says, “speaks to my soul.”

The Hull-based company Middle Child, who’ve produced this piece, have a wonderful following and truly bring theatre to the young and politically driven. Daniel Ward, who wrote the play and plays The Bird, at first uses stereotypes to make his point.  

But this soon disappears and we’re transported into his world through a truthful, thoughtful, fast-moving and funny exposition of life lived as a black person.

The word “racism” is never mentioned – it doesn’t need to be. Instead we step inside the boy’s shoes and live and breathe the inequality.  

Director Paul Smith and musical composers Prez 96 and James Frewer set the stage alight with a buzzing cast of four and Rachel Barnes and Laurie Jamieson make creative use of cellos and keyboards for music and atmosphere, while also playing all the white characters.

And Taylor and Ward openly share with us what it is to be black in what’s a simple but urgent story.

Runs until February 8, box office: arcolatheatre.com