Why I Don’t Hate White People (Tour – Manchester)

Although Why I Don’t Hate White People is described as a journey of self-discovery it is more an examination of the racism of people like you or I who claim not to be prejudiced. Writer and performer Lenm Sissay argues that claiming not to notice skin colour is as prejudiced as judging people by that criterion. This type of colour blindness is, he notes in a nice piece of word play, an illness.

The show opens promisingly with Sissay declaring that his childhood, raised by Wigan Social Services and foster parents in a village that had no other black people, was like being part of an anthropological experiment. In common with the other villagers Sissay had never met another black person and so lacked a role model and perceived other members of his race as potential threats.

Having set up an intriguing premise, however, our host allows the show to drift. Instead of analysis we are given anecdotes that are amusing but do not really clarify the author’s point of view or move forward his argument. This is not to say that the show lacks humour. The description of the Lancastrian rite of passage of entering a pub for the first time is performed Clint Eastwood style with conversation ceasing and Ennio Morricone playing in the background.
 
The show is disjointed hopping from one subject to another and covering themes that distract from the main topic. A sequence in which Sissay conjures what is needed to examine whether or not a joke is racist shows the frustration of the poet with bureaucracy rather than with racism itself.

Sissay is not a natural performer and lacks fluidity. His speech is interrupted by pauses and he occasionally delivers a line in a confusing way. He is not well served by director John E McGrath as Why I Don’t Hate White People straddles the line between stand-up and theatre with the director preferring the latter. Filmed images are projected onto Sissay’s clothing and sound effects such as bursts of static are used to add texture to the show. However, Sissay is directed to adopt physical gestures to illustrate the script even though this does not make things clearer and he is sent dashing around the stage in a manner that leaves him out of breath. At times you wish the producers had heeded the advice given to a method actor: don’t just do something – stand there.

Why I Don’t Hate White People is worth a look and readers have the opportunity to see or hear it for free either at the theatre or on radio.

Free tickets are available for a 6.30pm performance at the Contact Theatre this Sunday, 21st March,2010.

The show is being recorded for broadcast on Radio 4 and tickets are available from the BBC on 0161-244 4255. Don’t forget to mention that you saw the details right here.

– Dave Cunningham