Small Island with the National Theatre at Home
Kristy Stott, Theatre Editor
To mark Windrush Day 2020, the National Theatre will stream their epic stage adaptation of Andrea Levy’s Orange-prize winning novel, Small Island.
Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the National Theatre have been consistently brilliant in sharing accessible world-class performances via their YouTube channel. It’s a real testament to the importance of a cultural institution, like the National Theatre, that it has something as powerful as this production of Small Island, to share right now.
Filmed live during its sold-out run in 2019, Andrea Levy’s epic novel about the Windrush Generation makes a hugely entertaining three hours of theatre. Embark on a journey from Jamaica to Britain, through the Second World War to 1948 – the year that HMT Empire Windrush docked at Tilbury.
Following three intricately woven stories, a company of 40 performers take to the stage for this timely and affecting story. Hortense wants for a new life and to escape rural Jamaica, Gilbert dreams of becoming a lawyer, and Queenie longs to escape her Lincolnshire roots. Tracing the tangled history between Jamaica and the UK, hope and humanity meet stubborn reality.
Small Island felt hugely relevant when it was first performed in 2019, in the wake of the Windrush scandal and the call for the men and women who came to the UK from the Caribbean in the 1940s to have their cultural achievements and influence on British society properly recognised. Now, a year later, in the throws of global unrest and racial anger, this play seems even more relevant than ever.
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