Review: The Hounding of David Oluwale
February 6, 2009
Date reviewed: 4 February 2009
Venue: West Yorkshire Playhouse
Considering how I might respond to The Hounding of David Oluwale before I saw it ushered me toward the question of what theatre’s purpose is. There’s a canyon between what seems an appropriate response to fictional and factually-grounded tragedies. When you see a great production of Hamlet, for example, it moves you, and you derive pleasure from, and feel admiration for, its ability to move you. However, it would surely be frivolous to treat a dramatic account of a real man’s downfall purely, or perhaps even primarily, as entertainment. To be moved seems fitting; to enjoy the fact that you have been moved does not.
For clarity’s sake, I ought to give the following information: David Oluwale was a young Nigerian who immigrated to Leeds in 1949 in the hope of pursuing a career in engineering. He started a family with a local woman, but was committed to Menston Asylum for eight years following a scuffle in a nightclub. There, he was given shock therapy and copious quantities of insulin. Upon release, he discovered that his home had been earmarked for demolition to create space for Leeds’ new ring road. He was increasingly reduced to vagrancy because night shelters were reluctant to accommodate him, and this led to his being persistently assaulted by two police officers. His savaged body was found in the Aire in 1969. A subsequent internal police investigation led to the conviction of the two officers, Sergeant Kenneth Kitching and Inspector Geoffrey Ellerker, for assault. Finally, Oladipo Agboluaje’s script is an adaptation of Kester Aspden’s book Nationality: Wog: The Hounding of David Oluwale, which was published in 2007.
Agboluaje has elected to present the story through a series of (mostly brief) scenes loosely orbiting the internal police investigation conducted by DCS Perkins, played by Ryan Early. These include discussions that Perkins imagines himself having with Oluwale (Daniel Francis) and Oluwale’s recollections of events in his hometown of Lagos. It’s a masterfully judged format that invigorates a plot that, because it is based upon reconstruction rather than actual events, might otherwise feel dry and utilitarian. Moreover, it’s a vehicle for some cutting irony, in the shape of some oratory by incoming councillors who rather hyperbolically aggrandise their plans for the city and, equally hyperbolically, lampoon the achievements of their predecessors.
However, while another of its advantages is to construct an impression of Oluwale and his experiences fluidly rather than academically, the advantage is pressed home a bit overzealously in the early going. The scene-setting for the first twenty minutes or so is positively relentless; nothing that happens lacks a transparently identifiable purpose. You want the characters to exchange ideas for haircuts, or for one of them to point out to another that he has a ketchup stain on the sleeve of his shirt, but there is no genuinely incidental conversation. You feel as though you’re being force-fed contextual details.
Agboluaje and director Dawn Walton’s decision to set a considerable chunk of the play in Nigeria, at the expense of less hurried coverage of the earlier stages of Oluwale’s life in Britain, is likewise questionable. It’s undeniable that accounting for his reasons for moving to Britain and how his prodigiously idealised view of it accumulated is important, but this should probably be done more succinctly. Moreover, the city of Leeds becomes a character in its own right in a way that Lagos never really does. However, the final scene, which is set in Oluwale’s imagination, is the least dispensable of all.
Although overall Agboluaje’s choice of structure is a shrewd one, credit must also go to Walton, lighting designer Johanna Town, designer Emma Wee and sound director Mic Pool for capitalising on it. Many different atmospheres have to be cultivated in rapid succession, and this is largely done with effortless confidence and sound judgment. Pool’s contributions are especially fine – little dashes of synthesiser to evoke the unease of post-industrial Leeds or dabs of wind to suggest the fields of Lagos – while Walton’s resourceful use of space allows scenes to intertwine organically.
While none of the performances seems deflated, there are two obvious standouts. As Oluwale, Francis is authoritative. You sense that he feels great compassion for his character, yet his focus is consummate. On the other hand, Steve Jackson’s Kitching is deeply unsettling to watch: there’s something implicitly snide and aggressive in his every movement and utterance, and yet you never feel that he has reduced his character to the unglamorous equivalent of a Disney villain. Almost as pleasingly, he and dialect coach Neil Swain deserve credit for a note-perfect south Leeds accent (provided, of course, that Jackson isn’t actually from West Yorkshire). However, he is markedly less commanding in his smaller roles, not least because he fumbles or mumbles a couple of lines.
To return to my original dilemma, I did manage to enjoy the play without feeling too guilty or frivolous after all (and, as far as I could tell, so did everyone else in the audience). I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with Agboluaje’s stated aim of giving Oluwale a “befitting memorial”; it’s perhaps a bit presumptuous. However, the play depicts a man of almost immeasurable spirit and optimism, and this is probably why it proves enjoyable despite its grim subject matter.
-Simon Walker
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2 Responses to “Review: The Hounding of David Oluwale”
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Well done to the entire cast and creators of ‘The Hounding of David Oluwale’. It was a packed House on Saturday, the last night of the run at Birmingham’s Repertory theatre. Looking around at the audience; mostly young, all races (who says people of colour are not theatre-goers!) I wondered if they had come to find answers for today from a tragedy now forty years past.
The play invoked the worst nightmare of racism but left us with hope in the steadfast figure of Ryan Early. My most emotional experience; Maa’mi’s ‘go and return safely’ prayer for David. In this scene, Clare Perkins performance as Maa’mi offered a deeply moving link to the recent past and for all of us who have children. A tremendous memorial.
Sylvie Green
As I said in my review, I’m a little tentative about the idea of a the play as a memorial, but the respectful portrayal of Oluwale’s life that it gives is an eminently worthwhile project.
One aspect of Oladipo Agboluaje’s writing that I enjoyed, but didn’t mention in my review, is his exploration of Kitching and Ellerker’s motives. I really liked the way that their frustrations - Kitching’s disenchantment with attempts to bureaucratise the Leeds City Police and achieve transparency within it and Ellerker’s view of his job as a tedious formality on his way up the force’s echelons - are illustrated. Psychologically, it seems to make sense to me that they vented these feelings on a man who they thought that they could strike with impunity. Similarly, it also makes sense that Oluwale’s defiance, the result both of his robust sense of justice and his unwillingness to accept the British notion of discretion, would have frustrated them further.