Greg Cullen's sweetly sentimental love story about a fatherless boy, Paul Robeson, and Wales, in the Fifties, is the stuff that Sunday matinee dreams are made of. The story is of a small boy told by his single mum that his father died in the war and once sang with Paul Robeson. But to add seriousness to sentiment, Paul Robeson did indeed have strong links with Wales after meeting a group of miners in the West End while appearing in Showboat. Later, he made a famous transatlantic phone call in 1957 to the Eisteddfod in Porthcawl after his American passport had been revoked for suspected Communist sympathies.
Cullen's four characters are boldly and engagingly drawn as lonely Gethyn develops an obsession with Robeson after seeing him in the 1939 Welsh film, Proud Valley. The arrival of a black road engineer, George Cumberbatch, leads Gethyn to believe it must be Robeson returning. But George has never heard of Robeson and can't sing, so instead he entertains the boy with stories of the crocodile infested Essequibo river in his native Guyana, and of a mother whose dancing "could shake the nails out of the roof".
Meanwhile, Gethyn's own mother is a hard-working Cinderella who loved one too many soldiers and is in the debt of "Uncle Ron", who woos her with fresh vegetables.
Cullen's play is a heart warming, well-crafted work that uses gentle politics and self effacing humour to hold back from the brink of sugary sentimentality. But Cullen's staging is no less simple or direct, using a spartan two tier set with back projections of Robeson's movies.
Unaccompanied singing runs throughout and the emotional river of Cullen's production just keeps on rolling to its tear jerking finale.
Mark Howell East is a fortysomething Gethyn reliving his childhood with tenderness and simplicity. Nor could you wish for a more wholesome or gutsy Mum than that of Melissa Vincent, and Declan Wilson, as George, is a tall, dapper gentleman in linen and brogues who develops a Robeson like voice of his own. Finally, Rhodri Hugh's bad guy foreman adds a twist of meanness and prejudice, but never loses sight of the humour or pathos - so completing a charming distillation of black and white matinee magic.
Paul Robeson Knew My Father
