MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
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Mordant memoir
MAYER WAKEFIELD sees a brilliant production of an autobiographical play set in the early years of apartheid
PIC CAP Astonishing: Hammed Animashaun and Lucian Msamati Pic: Helen Maybanks
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JOHN GREEN relishes photography that unfolds a longstanding and poetic relationship with Leeds
A uncomfortably misogynistic authorial voice that sometimes seems to lack insight troubles FIONA O’CONNOR
MARY CONWAY is disappointed by a production that panders – if inadvertently – to Western prejudice against China
JOHN GREEN is fascinated by a history that excavates the enormous role played by agricultural workers in recent times
ALEX HALL recommends a book that places empirical evidence at the heart of understanding racism
‘Master Harold’ ... and the boys
National Theatre, London
IN HIS programme notes, Harold Athol Lanigan Fugard describes his 1982 play ‘Master Harold’ … and the boys as “probably the most intensely personal thing I have ever written.”
It’s so personal that he did not even change the names of the characters from that of his own — Hally, the pet name of a young Fugard — or the “two beautiful men” he describes as having ushered him from boyhood to manhood, Sam Semala (Lucian Msamati) and Willie Malopo (Hammed Animashaun).
Sam and Willie were the waiters in the Port Elizabeth tearoom owned by Fugard’s mother, which is beautifully brought to life on the Lyttleton stage by Rajha Shakiry’s delicately detailed design.
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