A Free for All Epiphany

Free for All: bound for servitude on "a slave ship" (Photo: Colin Darling/CMS)

On 6 January 2007, Christ Church in Quinton, Birmingham, warmly welcomed the Free for All team members and their gifts for inspiration.

The rain was lashing down on the M42 as my CMS colleague Dave Pollendine and I searched for Junction 4A, the turn-off for Quinton.

It being Epiphany, the weather reminded me strongly of the opening lines of T.S. Eliot’s poem “The journey of the Magi”: “A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year for the journey....”

However, the driving rain and the chill of the church’s interior couldn’t have been in starker contrast to the warm, enthusiastic and hospitable reception that the small CMS group and the Big Intent theatre company, of which Dave is a founder member, received from the adults and children waiting for us.

Thirty-three youngsters and teenagers were waiting to take part in a five-hour workshop — an extraordinary commitment in itself — that would lead to an evening performance of a play about slavery and the battle to end Britain’s part in the slave trade by Act of Parliament in 1807.

Dave’s brother Dan Pollendine, Dan’s wife Ayozie ('Yo'), Dave himself, Lloyd Notice, a powerful actor, and CMS’ Anita Matthews and Mike North stimulated their excitement and interest, warmed them up with physical and vocal exercises, taught them ‘stage presence’ and the many songs that drive the dramatic narrative, and helped them to grow familiar with their parts and the movements and mimes they would enact during the course of the play.

Free for All: Lloyd Notice, playing ‘Debget’, and Dave Pollendine as ‘the slave catcher’ (Photo: Colin Darling/CMS)

They were allocated to three groups, each representing characters from Africa, Great Britain and the Caribbean.   Each group had its own ‘stage business’ to perform, its own choruses and attitudes to adopt.

During the rehearsal, ‘Yo’ used the beat of a drum to help them to learn how and when they should bring each scene’s activity or vocalisation to a complete halt.

Dan encouraged their growth in confidence: “Before you were a rabble; now there’s something mysterious about you — I don’t know if you are a good or a bad person yet but you each have a story to tell.  I can sense that at this point.”

Free for All: ‘stage business’ (Photo: Colin Darling/CMS)

Ayozie praised them for learning the lyrics so quickly, whether in English for the wistful “O secrets have echoes that whisper in the breeze”, or in Yoruba when a group of them sang as captured ‘slaves’, “What’s going to happen?  Where are you taking us?” while they processed in stricken bewilderment down the aisle to the altar.

When they were given costumes, they got even more motivated.  Two small boys kept declaring excitedly to some of the 25-30 adults who drifted into the pews before the play began, “I got the money!  I’m an English rich boy!  Look at my clothes!  I'm richer than he is!”  In truth, in their frock coat, waistcoat and breeches, they did look like well-to-do refugees from the stage set of Lionel Bart’s Oliver!

Artwork for "Stop the Slavery" at Quinton (Photo: Anne Darling/CMS)

They got the point of the exercise however.   Just before the performance, a teenage boy adopted the slogan “Free for All and all for freedom!”, initiated by CMS’ Colin Darling, and shouted it at the audience, who took it in their stride.  Many smiled at his enthusiasm and exchanged banter with him.

It was fascinating to learn from Janet Stanley, 44, the mother of two girls on the "stage", that her ancestor, Baptist preacher Paul Bogle, six generations back on her mother’s side of the family, had led a rebellion in Stony Gut, Jamaica, in 1865 by freed slaves who were denied land rights by the British colonial regime.

Her grandmother, she remembered, had been invited to attend the unveiling of a statue to him in front of the Court House at Morant Bay.

For Janet, the theme of the play was infinitely more than just history or entertainment; it was integral to her family tree and heritage.

The entire cast and audience of Free for All in Christ Church, Quinton (Photo: Colin Darling/CMS)

The kindness of all at Christ Church — such as Dave and Karen, who served and shared slices of pizza and cups of tea and orange squash with us during a 20-minute break between workshop and performance, and Anne Darling, Colin’s wife, who helped to sell some of the Free for All mugs and T-shirts — and the open-hearted, mutual sharing of gifts by everybody present that day made it an Epiphany experience in the truest sense.

For other Free for All workshop-and-performance dates and venues between now and November 2007, visit www.cms-uk.org/freeforall.