Black Power Desk – Lowry, Salford

Book: Urielle Klein-Mekongo

Music: Renell Shaw

Lyrics: Urielle Klein-Mekongo, Gerel Falconer

Director: Gbolahan Obisesan

“I was never taught about black women in British history” says writer Urielle Klein-Mekongo, having seen the 2017 TV series Guerrilla, a love story set in 1970s London where the black power movement was hitting back against racism and the 1971 Immigration Act. That’s where the research for Black Power Desk began, leaving Klein-Makongo in no doubt that she needed to tell the story of black women who took part in the fight.

Celia (Rochelle Rose) and Dina (Veronica Carabai) are sisters. Bound together by childhood pacts to look out for one another, and by the recent death of their mother. Dina throws all of her anger and grief in to political activism, standing against a powerful male opponent to lead a black power movement group. Celia just feels lost and lonely. Local restaurant and bar, The Drum, has become a meeting place for the movement, run by Carlton (Gerel Falconer) and Maya (Chanté Faucher) it’s the setting for drinking, dancing, politics, love and plenty of arguments. It’s supposed to be a safe space, but it’s subject to frequent raids by local police, and while not all the things going on inside are completely legal, Officer Pullen (Alan Drake) and Officer Marks (Casey Bird) are really just out to undermine the activist movement by finding a way to shut it down.

The set is pretty perfunctory (Natalie Pryce) but costumes (Jessica Cabassa) give the piece an authentic 1970s feel and the show cleverly involves the audience right from the beginning, as we become the participants and voting members for the political meetings. The whole theatre becomes The Drum and we’re caught up in Dina’s rise to leadership, and subsequently in everything else that happens. The Lowry audience totally buys in to this and participation becomes vocal and heartfelt, sometimes drowning out quite long sections of the dialogue on stage.

There’s a strong and important story at the heart of this musical. It touches on a whole range of issues faced by the black community then and now and doesn’t shy away from racist and misogynistic language, attitudes and acts. Officer Pullen’s ‘body search’ of Maya, while beautifully choreographed without him actually touching her, is violent and disturbing. Pullen’s treatment of his WPC colleague should feel dated, but with recent stories of misogyny in the Met, it has horrible contemporary resonance.

But despite the content of Black Power Desk, Klein-Mekongo has managed to balance the brutality with a lightness of touch. There are moments of joy in the relationships between characters, self-deprecating jokes and, of course, music. The problem is, telling such a big story and fitting in plenty of musical numbers, together with some slow direction (Gbolahan Obisesan) and scene changes, particularly some wordy later scenes in the first act, mean that the show is way too long. A bit more pace would definitely benefit the story-telling.

A three piece on-stage band (Daniel Taylor, Tendai Humphrey Sitima and Romarna Campbell) is the backing for some really great songs by Klein-Mekongo and Renell Shaw. The duets (particularly when Rose and Carabai sing together) are beautiful, Rose delivers some great R&B vocals and the tunes are catchy and memorable. The musical highlights though are the rap courtroom scenes and Alexander Bellinfantie’s (who plays Jarvis, Dina’s husband) reggae number.

Klein-Mekongo is a brave and sharp storyteller, overlaying some tough realities with a feelgood and positive message, and as such Black Power Desk deserves a long run beyond this four venue tour.

Runs until 18 October 2025