Saturday night I took my girlfriend to see my friend Charlie Dark's new show "Have Box Will Travel" at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith. If you know Charlie, you'll know he's a creative dynamo. Ever organising, performing, teaching and of course, DJing. I'm lucky enough to have brought him in on a youth project I was working in Lewisham back in 2005-2007 called Live Recordings, teaching a bunch of 'at risk' kids from South East London how to run a record label. So, as soon as he'd told me about his latest project I had to go.
"Have Box Will Travel" is a strongly auto-biographical play about Charlie's musical coming of age: from the halcyon dreams of a child bedroom DJ hyperactive on the fumes of Public Enemy's revolution, via larger than life characters like Sweaty Tony and the most perfectly realised of all, his confused and hilarious 'Nubian Queen' mother. Charlie takes us on a journey, pulling us down into the isolation of his breakdown post major label rejection, only to brought touchingly back into focus again with the birth of his first child, Naima (named after a John Coltrane song, but shhh, don't tell mum). All to a sound track of classic funk, afrobeat, hip hop and jazz.
A warm, touching and very funny insight into an all too familiar story of hopes, dreams and growing pains all told with Charlie's usual storytelling panache. "Have Box Will Travel" is a musical trip down memory lane that made me rush straight back home and dig out my old soul, jazz and hip hop records to relive the very same fuzzy nostalgia. Go see this, only one week left!
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Show synopsis:
It’s hard being the king of the turntables when you live in South London and your African mother doesn’t understand her Hip from her Hop.
Charlie Dark’s new show Have Box Will Travel
is a rites of passage story that takes you from a bedroom in South London, round the world, and back again, with life-changing tracks and slick direction from Hip Hop theatre favourite Benji Reid.
Charlie Dark is a dynamic part of the UK’s poetry
and performance scene as a writer, producer
and DJ known for his flamboyant gestures and vocal gymnastics. Charlie founded Blacktronica, a monthly showcase of the Black electronic music scene in Britain.
More info and booking details here - http://www.lyric.co.uk/fromhomepage/pl333.html
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