Review of Paul Robeson Knew My Father

Cathryn Scott - The Big Issue on 04/10/2004

When Welsh playwright Greg Cullen was a youngster he discovered the internationally famous actor, singer and human rights campaigner Paul Robeson. The first black man he had ever seen in a leading film role, Cullen admits Robeson’s gentle mannerisms and comforting voice made him see the star as a comforting father figure. “I had met my hero,” he says in the programme notes. “I wanted him to look after me”. Some years later Cullen was overwhelmed when a friend played him a recording of the 1957 South Wales Miners’ Eisteddfod where Robeson sang via a transatlantic phone link because the US authorities had confiscated his passport as they thought he was a communist.

Learning that the writer was inspired by such personal experiences goes some way in explaining just why Paul Robeson Knew My Father is such a moving, heartfelt production. Its reflective nature and underlying tensions make it difficult not to find tears welling up in one’s eyes, but it never becomes overly reliant on pathos. One can’t help but ask how much of Cullen is present in the complex character of Gethyn, the young Valleys boy so desperate to learn more about his father – he only knows his father died in the war and once sang with Robeson – that he believes a stranger in the village is none other than Robeson himself.

Paul Robeson Knew My Father uses the most basic of sets and props, instead relying on a good dose of imagination from the audience, snippets from some of his songs and a selection of video clips from Proud Valley, which was filmed in Wales and starred Robeson. The cast of four give good, strong performances under the guidance of director Chris Morgan, particularly Greg Llewellyn Arthur, whose expressions, mannerisms and wide-eyed innocence add to the show’s poignant tone.

The love triangle between Gethyn’s mother Sandra (Jessica Sandry), her married lover Ron (Lee Mengo) and George Cumberbatch (Duane Hannibal) also provides a vehicle to convey the underlying oppression and prejudice present in a Wales on the cusp of dramatic change.

First performed in 1999, it’s little wonder Hijinx has chosen to restage this production. Its themes make it perfect material for the company’s annual tour, which brings theatre into communities that don’t usually get to experience such live events, and it captures perfectly the affection the people of Wales felt for Robeson and he for them.

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