NT Premieres Fix as Kwame Prepares Kitchen TourDate: 16 December 2004
Actor-turned playwright Kwami Kwei-Armah (pictured) is a busy man. Tonight (Thursday 16 December 2004), his second play for the National Theatre, Fix Up, receives its world premiere at the NT Cottesloe. And in the new year, he takes to the stage himself to star in his first play for the National, Elmina's Kitchen, on a new UK tour opening at Birmingham Rep on 25 February 2005.
Premiered at the Cottesloe in May 2003, Elmina's Kitchen earned Kwei-Armah last year’s Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright. The play is set in Hackney, east London, where the Yardies are eating up the “Murder Mile” and Digger’s promise of protection sounds more like a threat. Kwei-Armah will play the part of Deli, who’s desperately trying to keep his restaurant in business and his son in line with other temptations looming.
Kwei-Armah’s other stage writing credits include Hold On, A Bitter Herb and Big Nose. As an actor, he’s well known from his TV role as Finlay Newton in the long-running series Casualty and, earlier this year, won the Celebrity Fame Academy competition.
In Elmina's Kitchen, he’s joined in the cast by Dona Croll, Oscar James and Shaun Parkes, who will be reprising their NT performances on tour. The production is directed by Angus Jackson and designed by Bunny Christie. Following its dates at Birmingham Rep, which is producing the tour, it continues, until 2 April 2005, to Liverpool, Bristol, Salford and Leeds.
Kwei-Armah’s new play Fix Up shifts the geographical focus slightly from Hackney to Tottenham in north-east London, where, oblivious to Black History Month, Revive plc are planning to turn Kwesi’s All Black African Party hotbed into luxury flats and it looks like Kiyi’s ‘conscious’ bookstore will soon go the same way. And then a beautiful visitor shows up in their midst and life goes from bad to worse.
Once again directed by Jackson and designed by Christie, the Fix Up cast are Jeffrey Kissoon, Nina Sosanya, Claire Benedict, Mo Sesay and Steve Toussaint. It continues in repertory at the NT Cottesloe until 23 March 2005.
- by Terri Paddock
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