大象传媒

Who complained about Olivier's Othello? Stephen Bourne has been mining the archives to find out who raised questions about Laurence Olivier's blacked up performance in 1964. It's one of the stories he tells in his new book, which also includes memories of meeting performers including Carmen Munroe, Corinne Skinner-Carter and Elisabeth Welch. Nadine Deller hosts a podcast linked to the National Theatre's Black plays archive and she's particularly interested in women playwrights whose work deserves to be better known including Una Marson. They talk to performer and historian of women in theatre Naomi Paxton. Plus New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei tells the story of Afro Cuban performer Rita Montaner.

Deep Are the Roots: Trailblazers Who Changed Black British Theatre is out now from Stephen Bourne. His other books include Black Poppies and Playing Gay in the Golden Age of British TV.
The National Theatre Black Plays archive is at https://www.blackplaysarchive.org.uk/ and Nadine's podcast is called That Black Theatre Podcast.
You can hear Dawn Walton who directed the Hampstead Theatre production of Alfred Fagon's drama The Death of a Black Man in this Free Thinking conversation about black performance From Blackface to Beyonc茅 /programmes/m000tnlt

Naomi Paxton is the author of Stage Rights! The Actresses' Franchise League, activism and politics: 1908-1958 and has written an introduction to the new book 50 Women in Theatre.
Naomi and Adjoa are New Generation Thinkers on the scheme run by 大象传媒 Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to turn research into radio.

A playlist of discussions, features and essays about Black history, music, writing and performance is available on the Free Thinking programme website /programmes/p08t2qbp

Producer: Tim Bano

Image: Trinidadian actor and playwright Errol John records his radio play Small Island Moon at the 大象传媒 in 1958