The story of Black British theatre at its most radical, entertaining
and profound - told through the lives of its great trailblazers.
In Deep Are the Roots, Stephen Bourne celebrates the pioneers of Black
British theatre, beginning in 1825, when Ira Aldridge made history as
the first Black actor to play Shakespeare's Othello in the United
Kingdom, and ending in 1975 with the success of Britain's first
Black-led theatre company.
In addition to providing a long-overdue critique of Laurence Olivier's
Othello, too-often cited as the zenith of the role, Bourne has unearthed
the forgotten story of Paul Molyneaux, a Shakespearean actor of the
Victorian era. The twentieth-century trailblazers include Paul Robeson,
Florence Mills, Elisabeth Welch, Buddy Bradley, Gordon Heath, Edric
Connor and Pearl Connor-Mogotsi, all of them active in Great Britain,
though some first found fame in the United States or the Caribbean. Then
there are the groundbreaking works of playwrights Barry Reckord and
Errol John at the Royal Court; the first Black drama school students;
pioneering theatre companies; and three influential dramatists of the
1970s: Mustapha Matura, Michael Abbensetts and Alfred Fagon.
Drawing on original research and interviews with leading lights, Deep
Are the Roots is a powerful study of theatre's Black trailblazers and
their profound influence on British culture today.
