Memphis star Beverley Knight says her 'husband can’t watch race hate scenes’

The West End performer said she is ‘so proud’ of show
Sing it out: Beverley on stage in the musical (Pic credit: Dave Benett)
Louise Jury24 October 2014
The Weekender

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Memphis star Beverley Knight says her husband cannot bear to watch the gritty scenes in which her character faces vicious racial prejudice.

The singer turned stage star spoke at the opening night party for the West End musical, about a white DJ championing black music in the segregated America of the Fifties.

Memphis the musical press night

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Knight, 41, plays Felicia, a black singer in Memphis who falls in love with white DJ Huey Calhoun, inspired by real-life figures such as Dewey Phillips. She said her husband James O’Keefe, who is Irish and white, found it hard to endure one scene where Felicia faces violent prejudice. “He really finds that very uncomfortable. He’s seen the show 11 times and still can’t watch that,” she added.

“The idea that two people who are in love but happen to come from different races could be pulled apart by such hatred — he finds it very difficult.”

At the party at Floridita in Soho, Knight said she was “proud as hell” of the show: “It’s an important story, and not just the racial element. A lot of people don’t understand the roots of rock ’n’roll and the people who risked a lot to give birth to it — the black players who turned up the tempo that became rock ’n’ roll and the DJs like Dewey Phillips who brought it to the masses.”

In the first-night audience at Shaftesbury Theatre were Mel B, Tinie Tempah, Wretch 32 and Candi Staton.

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