Peter Viney's Blog

By George Brant
Directed by Monique Touko
Set Designer Lily Arnold

Chichester Festival Theatre (co-production with Rose Theatre, and ETT)

Minerva Theatre, Chichester
Saturday 19th July 2025, 14.15

CAST
Beverly Knight- Sister Rosetta Sharpe
Ntombizodwa Ndlovu – Marie Knight

MUSICIANS
Shirley Tetteh – Guitar, MD
Mia Odeleye – piano
Ishara Andrews – drums
Genevive Namazzi – double bass

From the Chichester website:

Mississippi, 1946. Sister Rosetta has changed the face of gospel music with her exuberant, electric guitar-playing style. Shunned by straitlaced church folk for performing in nightclubs and glorying in rhythm and blues, she’s persuaded the saintly young singer Marie to join her on a tour of the segregated southern States. But first she has to convert Marie’s pure Sunday sound into something that has just a little more swing…

The play is American dating from 2016. You might guess it’s US origins because it has a major star, a tiny cast and just the one set. Being the UK, the single set is superb with different circular platforms for different parts of the performance. It is quite different from the notes in the play text too.

Basically, it’s a funeral parlour which has allowed the travelling African-American group to use its premises overnight. The pianist and guitarist have booths either side of the stage. The bass player and drummer are obscured above, except for one scene where they’re lit. I believe the online images may be the Rose Kingston, not Chichester.

Compared to the text, I thought this production greatly improved the start of the play, tying it in to the final plot twist at the end. No plot spoilers, but I thought it was clever, interesting, and belies the “One day in Mississippi 1946” tags.

Rosetta is a guitarist and Marie a pianist. The playwright foresaw the issue. You need two first rate actors (got it) who are first rate singers (got it). Asking them to be virtuoso pianist and guitarist as well is a step too far in nearly any production. So they have the guitarist and pianist either side. Rosetta opens a guitar case on the floor to signal the guitar playing, the curtains open at the side, the guitarist plays. I think it works better than (say) miming. The text has a note (BTW, the text is over-priced at £10.99 for 80 pages. Also they could discount to sell in a production).

Judging by the names, the musicians are female (though dressed as males) and three surnames look African, rather than Afro-Caribbean. An aside. Some like my asides, others skip them. The musicians will not be ‘African-American’ in a British production, from practicality and Musicians Union rules. I’ve had so many arguments over ‘African-American’ which is my choice in a US context. However, American editors don’t understand it in a wider context. In our American English ELT courses we always had units on describing people. Ethnicity is obviously one area. American editors insisted on ‘African-American.’ I pointed out that though the books were in American English, well over 95% of sales were in Asia and Latin America. I asked about Nelson Mandela. ‘African-American,’ they said. Pelé? ‘African-American.’ Bob Marley? African-American. Lenny Henry? ‘African-American.’ None of them were. This was an argument I could not win too.

Is it a musical? A play with music? A play about musicians? All the songs are found songs, illustrating the careers of the singers, not telling another story. They list the songs in the programme, as in a musical, though I must have blinked and missed Amazing Grace. I’d class it as a play.

On the other hand, there is a lot of music, and Beverley Knight is simply one of the best female singers I have ever seen, up there with Natalie Merchant, Norah Jones, P.P. Arnold. Ntombizodwa Ndlovu as Marie Knight can keep up with her and is also an astonishing singer. Both act so well too, Beverley Knight as the older, road-hardened and experienced star,

Ntombizodwa Ndlovu as the ingenue. I would suggest she simplifies her name if she wants to capitalise properly on her singing ability. Too many unfamiliar consonant clusters for starters. It was a great privilege to see and hear Beverley Knight a few feet away giving it full voice. A few? When she came into the audience singing and playing tambourine she was virtually touching me. An alternative to hear her recently would have been the Royal Albert Hall. Add that acting- the stiffened stance of an older woman, the strong Mississippi accents from both.

The text claims to be carefully researched on the life stories, but one line leapt out:

Marie: One day ago you were a face on an album cover …

(Sorry, but I also run a record collecting site, which is why I can nitpick!) 1946? Yes, there were albums, but they were boxed collections of 78 rpm shellac records, NOT LPs. The 12″ 33 rpm LP arrived in 1948. Yes, box sets were illustrated from 1939 on, but you’d say box, not cover. In fact George Brant is only out by a year. Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s first box set (4 x shellac 78s) appeared in 1947, and her face was on the cover.

On anachronisms, the amplifier Rosetta pulls on stage is labelled Vox and is an early 1960s shape, and Vox started making amplifiers in 1958. On the other hand, the solid body 3 pick up Gibson Les Paul Custom the guitarist plays in the final section matches film of Rosetta Tharpe in 1964.

Still nerdish nitpicking aside it was a magnificent musical experience, and all too brief (two hours including a 20 minute interval). I liked them ending act one going off singing Didn’t It Rain (a favourite song for me) then coming back on singing it to start Act two. There is no break there in the play text too, so an excellent directorial addition, and great for the ice cream sales. The original plays without an interval. I like intervals.

Performance? Music and acting 5 star.
Overall? I’ll drop it to four. I liked the shift / twist at the end very much. I didn’t find it too wordy, and set was excellent. It’s just the American small cast / one set concept rarely allows a fifth star.

****

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID

The co-production started at the Rose Theatre, Kingston which is where it was reviewed.

4 star
Rachel Agyekum What’s On Stage ****
Holly O’Mahoney, The Stage ****

3 star
Ammar Kalia, The Guardian ***
Nick Curtis, The Standard ***