Liberation review – fizzing tensions of historic Pan-African Congress
It's a story that's both global and firmly rooted in the city, making it an ideal fit for Manchester international festival. Set in and around the Congress, Liberation follows the people behind the movement, including veteran activists George Padmore (Eamonn Walker) and Amy Ashwood Garvey (Pamela Nomvete) and future African politicians Kwame Nkrumah (Eric Kofi Abrefa), Jomo Kenyatta (Tonderai Munyevu) and Joe Appiah (Joshua Roberts-Mensah). We see their public speeches, their private discussions and their pub-room debates.
There's a fizzing tension between solidarity and idealism on the one hand and ambition and interpersonal conflict on the other. Nyoni's script is alive to nuance and difficulty, staging knotty struggles between different genders, generations and regional loyalties, as well as prodding at complex ideas around political change and allyship. As young social worker Alma La Badie (an impassioned Leonie Elliott) observes, the Congress is a space of egos as much as principles, where righteousness coexists with hypocrisy.
It's a play that is, by its nature, all talk. Yet Nyoni and director Monique Touko manage to inject the proceedings with some theatricality and verve, recognising that there is no true liberation without joy. Music (composed by Ezra Collective's Ife Ogunjobi) is central, soundtracking the jubilant entrance of Congress delegates and returning at key moments throughout. With so many people involved, some figures are inevitably given more space than others, but Nyoni deftly juggles the large ensemble of personalities and the strong cast flesh out even the smaller roles.
Like the attractive interlocking hexagons of Paul Wills's set, evoking the worker bee designs found all over Manchester, the competing aims of the Congress eventually – if only temporarily – tesselate. In many ways, Liberation is a celebration of shared struggle, but one that makes vital room for complexity.
At Royal Exchange theatre, Manchester, until 26 July
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