DEPTFORD BABY at Jack Studio Theatre
★★★
“a successful ode to community strength and resilience in the face of larger forces”
Deptford Baby is an anarchic, freewheeling, and joyous expression of local pride in the face of the rising tide of gentrification, inflected with the language of Southeast London’s community, returning following a 2022 debut in Deptford’s Matchstick Piehouse.
The performance begins before the play proper starts, with DJ Tommy Tappah playing a selection of UK garage and house tunes to the audience as they enter, setting the scene of Deptford High Street on a balmy summer’s evening, with people milling around on the street, enjoying a drink and soaking up the sun. Tommy Tappah’s call and response interplay – ‘when I say Deptford, you say baby’; ‘when I say Chino, you say Igwe’ – helping to create a party atmosphere that, in a room without seats, would certainly have resulted in dancing.
Writer-performer Chukwudi Onwere plays Chino Igwe, a Deptford local and aspiring novelist, who is walking down the High Street on the way to submit his Master’s thesis on Black British History, when suddenly the area is hit by an earthquake and then a tidal wave, catalysing a series of picaresque encounters with a love interest, giant fish, elderly relatives. Culminating in a climactic battle by the residents of Deptford and beyond, led by Chino, to defend their neighbourhood. ‘See it, fight it, restore your community’ is a refrain throughout the piece, and above all Deptford Baby is a celebration of locality, of the people and places that make an area special, and the need to fight to protect it.
These events are visually rendered by Carey Chomsoonthorn’s spectacular lighting design, which makes the most of the sparse staging, using flashing and coloured lights to evoke earthquakes, floods, and giant fish. Onwere’s performance is strong, and his portrayal of Chino’s Nigerian father and aunty are very well received by the audience. He throws himself around the small space, victim of many of misfortunes, and in this is well directed by Marc Pouni. Tommy Tappah’s mimed interventions and reactions to the action on stage provide an enjoyable interplay with the main action, and suggest that, should he want to, he’s ready to step out from behind the decks and into centre stage.
The rapid-fire nature of the play is one of its strengths. We are repeatedly told that Chino thrills the Deptford community with his adventure stories, and Deptford Baby’s structure surely echoes this, running through many floridly described, outlandish situations that act as an allegory for the external pressures of gentrification bearing down on Deptford. While I feel that some topics could have been broached differently, knife crime for example is touched on as a comedic example of his grandfather’s bravery, whose traumatic past is likewise dealt with as a sort of footnote, overall Deptford Baby is a successful ode to community strength and resilience in the face of larger forces, that is both thought-provoking and funny.
DEPTFORD BABY at Jack Studio Theatre
Reviewed on 25th July 2024
by Rob Tomlinson
Photography by Back On Films
Previously reviewed at this venue:
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING | ★★★ | August 2022
RICHARD II | ★★★★★ | February 2022
HOLST: THE MUSIC IN THE SPHERES | ★★★★★ | January 2022
PAYNE: THE STARS ARE FIRE | ★★★ | January 2022
TRESTLE | ★★★ | June 2021
DEPTFORD BABY
DEPTFORD BABY
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