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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Ryan Gilbey

Choir Boy review – gospel hymns light up stirring production of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play

Harmony amid discord … Martin Turner, Alistair Nwachukwu, Khalid Daley and Michael Ahomka-Lindsay in Choir Boy.
Harmony amid discord … Martin Turner, Alistair Nwachukwu, Khalid Daley and Michael Ahomka-Lindsay in Choir Boy. Photograph: Camilla Greenwell

Some of the shine has come off Moonlight, the Oscar-winning 2016 film adapted from Tarell Alvin McCraney’s unproduced play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. At the Royal Court this year, Danny Lee Wynter’s Black Superhero featured a monologue decrying it as a humourless misrepresentation of Black queer life – “a dirge underscored by an oboe”.

No such charges could be levelled at McCraney’s Choir Boy, itself a Royal Court premiere from 2012. The show is now the beneficiary of a revival by Nancy Medina, artistic director at the Bristol Old Vic. At its core are a cappella gospel hymns and spirituals that unite sparring classmates at the elite (and fictional) Charles R Drew prep school, showing how harmony can persist even amid discord.

Harsh reality occasionally trespasses on the music, whether during a discussion of the value of song to enslaved people, or in the opening scene where choir leader Pharus (Terique Jarrett) is distracted from his performance by a homophobic insult. He refuses to snitch on his heckler: that’s not what a “true Drew” would do, he insists, his allegiance to tradition overruling queerness in the internal melee of his identity.

Daon Broni (the headteacher) and Terique Jarrett (Pharus) in Choir Boy.
Daon Broni (the headteacher) and Terique Jarrett (Pharus) in Choir Boy. Photograph: Camilla Greenwell

The play is structured as a string of sketches punctuated by debates and confrontations that reveal the group’s dynamic: the swagger of bullyboy Bobby (Alistair Nwachukwu) is laced with grief; Pharus is exasperated by the obstacles placed in front of him; dapper AJ (Jyuddah Jaymes) and aspiring pastor David (Michael Ahomka-Lindsay) are harbouring their own secrets; and Junior (Khalid Daley) scurries between them all like a puppy. The rapport between the young actors is unforced and infectious.

Though individually absorbing, the scenes don’t achieve the cumulative force that might be expected, and a last-minute flurry of plot points suggests that McCraney is racing to the finish line. None of that is the fault of Medina, whose staging is fluid and expressive, especially in a brace of vignettes during which the back of the school hall set rises to reveal the stark white tiles of the PE showers. Hers is a stirring production of an imperfect play, in which everyone gets his chance to shine.

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