'Nine Night' at the Trafalgar Studios

We were lucky enough to catch one of the last performances of 'Nine Night' at the Trafalgar Studios, the play that transferred from the National Theatre into the West End. Nine Night is the Jamaican tradition of holding a dead person's wake over nine nights with parties, lots of drinking and eating, reminiscing  and setting the spirit of the deceased free. Surprisingly, this is the first play from Natasha Gordon and it's been a tremendous success with some great writing and plotting. While I won't pretend to have understood all the Jamaican references in the play it was pretty obvious from the reaction of the element of the audience with Jamaican heritage what was going on. It's about death and a wake but it's also incredibly funny and heartbreaking.

It's a Windrush generation tale of Gloria who leaves her eldest daughter with her grandparents to come to London to make a new life, marry, have children and send for her daughter who never arrives. In old age Gloria gets cancer and dies and it's left to her British family to follow the Nine Nights tradition of her homeland. The tale is really about Lorraine, the British daughter who gives up her job to nurse her ailing mother and then the burden of Nine Nights falls on her to arrange. supply and manage. We gradually learn about the family, its ups and downs, family tales and traditions, how brother Robert suddenly needs money and wants to sell the house, Lorraine giving up her job, Lorraine's daughter Anita learning about her heritage and lots more. There are enough plot twists in here to keep anyone happy. And then the eldest daughter, Trudy, arrives from Jamaica and everything changes.

I laughed out loud, I sympathised, I cringed inside at the embarrassing bits, all the things you do with a family at its rawest. This was an excellent piece of writing made even more special by Natasha , the author, taking the role of Lorraine (she didn't play it at the National Theatre). The cast were excellent and I particularly liked Natasha, Oliver Alvin-Wilson as brother Robert and Michelle Greening as scary sister Trudy. The run has now closed but when (not if) it's revived I'll be in the queue to get tickets.