I believe I have seen one of the best one-person shows in recent times. Usually, these productions involve an actor delivering lines written by someone else about someone else’s life. Tonight it was lines written and delivered by the person who had lived her life on a council estate, and that made it much more real for me, writes Michael Holland.
I thought I had never heard of Lorna Gayle, a Brixton girl who grew up doing all the things that poor, working-class kids do, but as The Legends of Them progressed and her story was peeled away, layer by layer, I realised that I did know of her family, that I did know the music she made as Lorna Gee, and that I could relate to her.
Performed in the wonderful Brixton House, in Lorna’s home town, the play opens with a video backdrop of India as we are introduced to her mother and siblings and her Nanny of the Maroons, who provides a special connection that drives Lorna ever onwards and upwards.
Lorna took us on a theatrical journey of her life from early racism when she didn’t really understand racism, to the dodgy uncle, the expulsions from various schools, and the scumbag men trying to get her to do things for ‘easy money’ that led to a prison sentence where she realised it was also easy to get caught for going after easy money; then the horror of her sister being shot by police. This is when I realised that I knew Lorna’s story. This is when I realised that this is a woman who has had to deal with situations far removed from anything other people have had to deal with.
Despite everything, Lorna carved out a career in music at a time when it was made difficult by the men who ran the industry. But Lorna Gee had an inkling that she was destined for more than what society said it should be, so she made her own rules to break; she channelled her Nanny of the Maroons and created a career in film, TV, theatre and music.
But that potted précis of the evening does not tell half the tale. From those post-Windrush days of daily struggle that her family suffered, Lorna had to break down the barriers set up by men to make music, while also smashing through the homophobia to be her own person. And after all that she then decided to get up on stage and tell the world. That is what legends are made of.
Lorna, who has now taken the name Sutara, gave us her story through rapping, toasting, singing, patois, and Cockney as she played all the significant people who have made her the woman she is today.
The audience was filled with those who had moved to her reggae songs in the dancehalls, and smooched to her Lovers Rock; those who had marched behind her family through the streets of South London to seek justice, and those who had followed her acting career right up until this point.
The Legends of Them is a phenomenal piece of work. It is the story of Sutara Gayle; it is the story of Brixton, it is a story of how an oppressed section of society can punch on through and still get the message out there.
Brixton House, Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, until 30th September.
Booking: www.brixtonhouse.co.uk
