‘On One of Those Sunday Nights’: 50 Years of Africa at the Royal Court Theatre

Abstract

The Royal Court Theatre has provided a launching pad for a variety of authors from Africa or, more recently, of African descent. This chapter explores the dynamics behind half a century of performing Africa at the Royal Court, with specific reference to Wole Soyinka, Femi Ajibade, Athol Fugard, and Bola Agbaje. Central to the investigation are the papers in the English Stage Company archive at the V&A, especially William Gaskill’s 1966 correspondence, as well as reviews and newspaper cuttings. It will be argued that attitudes to ‘Africa’ at the Royal Court have changed with the progressive gentrification of this venue, and attempts to achieve an ‘international’ dimension.

The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under REA grant agreement n° 299000. I also acknowledge the archives of the English Stage Company at the V&A Museum, London, for all quotations from press cuttings, as well as for the correspondence of the staff at the Royal Court Theatre, as indicated. Warm thanks are due to Mervyn McMurtry for an inspiring paper on Fugard’s The Island at the 2013 conference of the African Theatre Association (AfTA), and for some very useful bibliographical suggestions (amongst which, Mitchell 1976). I’m also grateful to Thomas Kell at Tiata Fahodzi for a very interesting conversation on the staging of Bola Agbaje’s Belong, Femi Elufowoju Jr for sharing contacts, and Sola Adeyemi for bringing my attention to Lindfors 2011. Many thanks also to Michael Pearce for his comments on the first draft of this chapter.