Who Killed Mr Drum?

Synopsis

In 1950s Jo'burg nothing stirs ... IT JUMPS! Can Themba is a man who lives for a party - illegal booze, gangsters slang, the fizz of jazz music and the thrill of a knife fight - all pepper the wicked prose of Drum Magazine's 'Shakespeare of the Shebeens'. And Drum's Chief Reporter, Henry Nxumalo, parties harder than anyone. But now Sophiatown is being cleared for white housing. Henry lies dead with twenty-three stab wounds. And Can's flaunting the law by loving a white girl ... Who Killed Mr. Drum? brings apartheid South Africa's black underbelly jumping to life, and counts the cost of one man's struggle to avoid opposition. Age 14+

Our Review:

5 September 2005

In an age of 90 minute, three character studio plays, Who Killed Mr Drum? - an epic new 12 character play that runs for some three hours and ten minutes - is certainly a departure. But sometimes it can be a case of too much of a good thing; and this big, sprawling, ambitious play occupies a dense canvas of plot and character that sometimes goes in several directions and pursues a lot of different complicated strands at once.

Writers Fraser Grace and Sylvester Stein make use of the leisurely, talkative traffic in and around the offices of South Africa's first black magazine, Drum, in 1957, to convey messages about black life that make it feel rather like an August Wilson play.

But while the period it charts, with the tightening grip of apartheid on South Africa, has an undeniable fascination and historical importance, I do wonder, too, why a black British play has once again had to go beyond our own borders for its subject. Black British stories...

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Latest User Review

62.252.0.10) - 6 September 2005:

The play is quite interesting, and gives a picture of the reality in South Africa of those days. I think the highlight of the play is actor Ayodeji Aloba. Though he only has a small part, he shows great talent and expressive capacity. Very promising....

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