August In England by Lenny Henry, Bush Theatre, 6 May 2023

I hate to sound smug…actually that’s not true…I delight in the smug thought that it was my idea to book this one, back in November when the Bush Theatre spring season was first announced.

Janie had of course consented to booking it but then largely forgotten all about it, as indeed had I, until the date grew near and we re-engaged with the production.

“Isn’t Lenny Henry a stand-up comedian? I don’t like stand-up comedy,” said Janie.

“He moved on from stand-up comedy a long time ago. Lenny Henry writes – this is a proper play.”

“Do you think he’ll be there on the night?”, asked Janie, who had clearly retained even less about this production than I had.

“I do hope so. It is a one-man show written and performed by Lenny Henry, so it will be more than a little bit disappointing if he doesn’t show up.

Lenny Henry did show up. His grounding in stand-up comedy was never too far away. He opens the play by endearing himself to the audience, not least by giving a few lucky punters a tot of rum. He then tells the story of his character, August Henderson, through a mixture of witty, bitter-sweet and some out-and-out funny anecdotes.

August’s life in Dudley/West Bromwich echoes that of the young Lenny Henry, although August must have been born a few years before Lenny Henry and, unlike Henry himself, the August character was born in Jamaica and brought to England by his mum as an infant. This subtle distinction is fundamentally important as the story unfolds.

Lenny Henry has superb stage presence. Not only does he still “have what it takes” to deliver anecdotes like a top-drawer stand-up comedian, he also dramatizes August’s sad story masterfully through words, expressions and movement. He tells the tale of his love for Clarice and the three children they produce. Also his love of reggae and ska music. His anecdote about skinheads especially resonated with me:

They loved reggae and ska in the beginning, but after a while they stopped loving us. I still don’t know what changed.

I’ve always wondered about that.

The nub of August’s story – or at least its denouement – is the Windrush scandal – the appalling 2012 Government policy creating a “hostile environment” for people who do not have leave to remain in the UK. While this policy was not targeted at people who had been British citizens in former Empire and Commonwealth countries, thousands of people from the Windrush generation – mostly people who came as children from the Caribbean in the 1950s and 1960s, were caught by this ill-considered change in law and policy. People lost their homes and/or their jobs – many were even deported, despite protections that had been enshrined in earlier laws specifically to prevent such injustices. I shouldn’t get on my own political high horse about this, but I’m going to anyway – the whole affair was a shambolic political sh*t-shower which made me (and many others who share my sense of justice) profoundly ashamed of my own Government.

August’s story unfolds with more subtlety than my paragraph above. Yes, really.

The ending of the play is shocking, poignant and thought-provoking. I especially liked the technique – borrowed from verbatim theatre – of getting several real people who were caught up in these injustices to tell their own stories on the screen. It brought home the reality in a way that the comedy drama – delivered by Lenny Henry’s flawed but loveable character August – could not manage alone.

Here is a link to the Bush resources on this play/production. I’d recommend this play/production highly. Unfortunately this run is sold out, but hopefully it will get a transfer as it deserves a bigger audience than five or six weeks-worth of Bush Theatre aficionados.

Mostly rave reviews and deservedly so. Click here for a link that should bring up most if not all of them.

Smug? Moi?