Nigerian Artist Finds the British Revolting 6 October, 2022 Greetings. Taking two shows to the Edinburgh Fringe in August and doing fourteen perfor

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Nigerian Artist Finds the British Revolting

6 October, 2022

Lawyer review on poster

Greetings.

Taking two shows to the Edinburgh Fringe in August and doing fourteen performances in eight days was quite gruelling, but it went rather satisfactorily. My tremendous, heartfelt gratitude to those who supported me financially and practically. Call Mr. Robeson was very well attended throughout, and received this lovely review: “Music is a universal language, and Aluko speaks it beautifully.” (Excellent Show) Fringe Review.

Just An Ordinary Lawyer struggled for audiences, but the reviews were spectacular: “A masterclass in performance art, research and history” (5 stars) and “Tayo Aluko’s writing is truly remarkable, and his stage presence is unparalleled with any other actor I’ve yet seen at the festival.” (4 stars) EdFringeReview.com
Luckily, the reviewers came before the last performance, by which time I had almost completely lost my voice. Whether it was through overwork, a virus, or a combination, I’m not sure, but I was fully recovered after a few days, thankfully.

Edionburgh Street

No residents or visitors to Edinburgh could have failed to notice how untidy the city streets were during the Fringe. That was because the bin workers were on strike, and they chose the Fringe period for maximum impact. The strike was for the usual reasons: better pay and conditions, and it provided the basis for my programme note for Call Mr. Robeson, in which I linked the strike with Martin Luther King Jr’s assassination and Paul Robeson.

Another, different, strike also featured in the programme note for Just An Ordinary Lawyer. Criminal barristers in England and Wales were on strike (and remain so), also for pay, but I focused more on the legal case that Kenyan victims of British colonialist brutality successfully brought against the British government.

The following week, I performed Lawyer again in Leeds, at a summit on Race and Migration organised by the Runnymede Trust. This time, my programme note focused on the small matter of collective action against the global elite.

Clarion 80th poster

Forthcoming.

Doubling up in Birmingham.

This coming Saturday I will be in Birmingham to perform at two events in the same afternoon! First is the delayed 80th anniversary concert of the Birmingham Clarion Singers, “singing for peace and socialism since 1940." Paul Robeson was made their honorary president back in the day, and that incredible honour has been mine for a few years now! I’ll be singing a few songs and doing a reading, and will then have to leave to hot-foot it to the central library to do some spoken word performance at the Birmingham Museum, called Family of Words: a social event that places poetry, calypso, storytelling and the art of wordplay centre stage.

Birmingham will also be the venue for my next performance of Just An Ordinary Lawyer, at the Birmingham Rep on October 17. Not on the theatre's programme, it will be a corporate performance for No. 5 Barristers Chambers, and the Birmingham Law Society. Although open to the public, the intention is to specifically target young Black and Global Majority students, in a bid to encourage them into law. I feel privileged to be doing this, and am looking forward to it very much.

After that, the next live performance is on November 4: Call Mr. Robeson at Grove Theatre, Eastbourne.

In between those, I'll be part of two other events: on October 25, I’m giving a presentation titled Art As A Weapon: Some Pan-Africanist Examples for the Institute for Social Responsibility at Edge Hill University, and on November 3, a workshop of Exploring “Greatness” for the Humanities Society at Brighton University.

Any Open University students or staff can also enjoy Just An Ordinary Lawyer on 18 October, in a special online session, followed by a Q&A.

I’ll be sharing Paul Robeson’s Love Song from my laptop on 23 October, again with a Q&A. POSTPONED. I was so pleased to receive this glowing review for this in the Morning Star in August: “A political and cultural feast, delivered with panache, humour and plenty of sumptuous baritone.”

Please go to my performances page for the list, and/or any updates.

C Arts

Online, On Demand

Recordings of all three of my plays are now available online and on demand, through a partnership with C Arts, the company that first hosted the world premiere of Call Mr. Robeson in Edinburgh over fifteen years ago! You will find booking details on the individual web page for each play: Call Mr. Robeson; Just An Ordinary Lawyer; Paul Robeson’s Love Song.

Labour Files

Parting Shots

The Enemy Within

Politics in so many parts of the world is troubling. We have seen parts of Ukraine annexed by Russia after suspect referenda. An environmental terrorist/gangster president stands a good chance of being re-elected in Brazil. Italy has a new fascist prime minister. Ukrainian opposition parties and news outlets have been banned. Sweden, formerly known as a bastion of European Democratic Socialism, has just voted in a right-wing party.

In another European country, an opposition party, which has shown itself to be ultra-nationalist, authoritarian, anti-immigrant and racist against non-whites and Jews, is also preparing for victory at the next general election. Its party bureaucracy is accused of spying on its members and has been shown to be corrupt and lawless; but the media in that country are colluding with each other to hide the evidence from its citizens. That country is Great Britain, and a recent documentary by Al Jazeera Investigations into the Labour Files lays it out very compellingly in four parts.

Seemingly, nobody at the top of the Labour Party has seen it, as they so convincingly claimed at their recent party conference. They don’t appear to be in a rush to see it either. Here’s a trailer. Judge for yourself after watching any one or more of the four episodes.

Unite

The British are Revolting

There are strikes and demonstrations happening up and down this country, not all of them getting much attention. Even those who protested the lockdown that followed the death of the queen, and her funeral, couldn’t penetrate the wall-to-wall sycophancy on display. The lowest point was probably a protest for the police killing of a Black man, Chris Kaba, was mistaken on air for a group of mourners.

The bin strikes in Scotland to which I alluded earlier ended with victory for workers and trade unions there. The rail strikes have been well covered, and are ongoing, but there are some others.

Here in Liverpool, the dockworkers at the Port of Liverpool have been out for over a week now, and I wrote two reports of it for the magazine Counterfire: Part 1, and Part 2, in which I focused on a docker coming out of his hospital bed to be with his comrades on the picket line in his last days. The strike coincided with the Labour Party conference in the city, but hardly any senior party members (and certainly none of the shadow cabinet) came out to show support. Contrast that with Bernie Sanders giving a speech to the RMT, the railworkers’ union, on a recent visit to London. Dockworkers have come out at the other end of the country, in Felixstowe.

london-bus-protest-lg

The postal workers, telephone and communication workers are on strike. Bus drivers and many others are or have been on strike. Nurses are balloting their members for strike action, for the first time in the country's history.

Public support for all these actions is high, much to the surprise and annoyance of the government and of mainstream media. Public demonstrations and rallies in support of workers and in protest against the government have been huge, yet the ordinary man or woman on the street wouldn’t know it from the BBC or other broadcasters. Counterfire or the Morning Star are among the independent media that report this.

Don t Pay

Don’t pay

Fuel prices have risen internationally. Here in the UK, a protest movement is growing too. People have decided to set up a Don’t Pay campaign, which aims to withhold payment of their bills by cancelling their Direct Debits, once one million people have signed up. I have signed up to that because I believe the cause of the crisis is not just one despot in Russia, but the leaders around the world who goaded him to war, and who continue to spend billions (making a lot for themselves and their arms-dealer handlers in the process) to keep the war going.

I presume that the clever people running Don't Pay will organise a way of collecting what would/should have gone to the energy companies and ensuring that the less well off who buy energy from day to day can be supported. UK residents who haven’t done so can click here for further information.

Assange Bolton
 
TUC
 
Classic

Talking of the law as I was earlier, the first video above is an interesting debate between two trained lawyers on arguably one of the most profoundly important cases anywhere in the world today.

I enjoyed the sketch in the second video, produced by the Trade Union Congress. Another demonstration of how art can cut through so much &%$ and get to the heart of the matter.

And finally, a demonstration of the transcendence of art across boundaries and generations, the charming video from South Africa.

Wishing you well, till the next time.

Tayo Aluko

Enough is Enough

Enough is Enough Rally, Liverpool, October 2022

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