Howard Campbell, Gleaner Writer
Cast members of the hit musical, The Harder They Come, with then Jamaican High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, Burchell Whiteman (right), at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in London last year. From left are artistic director of Theatre Royal Stratford East, Kerry Michael; Trevor A Toussaint, Rolan Bell, who plays the role of Ivan, and Marlon King. - Contributed
IN 1973, hundreds of persons of Caribbean descent rushed to cinemas throughout Britain to watch a powerful, low-budget drama called The Harder They Come. Thirty-five years on, their children and grandchildren are flocking theatres in that country to watch its stage version.
The Harder They Come, the musical, which opened at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in April 2006, before moving to The Barbican last year, will start its latest run June 9 at the Playhouse Theatre in Worcester.
Producer Jan Ryan told The Gleaner last week that the show has been a hit with young black Britons.
Stratford performance
"At the Stratford (capacity 400 seats) we played to an 80 per cent black audience, at The Barbican (capacity 1,000) it was 50 per cent black," Ryan said. "I think they are attracted to it by two things: it's a taste of 'home' and a taste of the culture they grew upon."
The Stratford and Barbican are located in east London where many West Indians lived when they came to England during the 1950s.
The Harder They Come musical has a 15-member cast, which is made up of blacks of Caribbean origin. Rolan Bell, who plays the lead character, Ivan, is the son of Jamaican immigrants while Dawn Reid, one of the directors, has similar lineage.
Joanna Fraser, who plays Elsa, Ivan's lover, is Jamaican.
Ryan is a Londoner, who says she first saw The Harder They Come when it opened in the Caribbean-strong borough of Brixton in 1973. Many black 'Brits', who lived in challenging conditions, identified with the film's urban theme.
Ryan said she met the film's writer/director, Perry Henzell, in Haiti in 2004. Henzell had a major role in the stage version, which begins with a 'nine night' for Ivan before tracing his dramatic rise from country boy to recording artiste/bad man.
Henzell died from cancer in December 2006. Jimmy Cliff, star of the film, was at the Stratford that year for the play's opening show.
Blacks in Britain: key events
The SS Empire Windrush, carrying 492 Caribbean citizens, arrives in Tilbury, Essex in June 1948.
The West Indies win their first Test series in England (3-1) in 1950.
In 1959, the Notting Hill Carnival is held for the first time.
Two West Indians, Aloysius 'Lucky' Gordon and Johnny Edgecombe, are implicated in the 1963 Profumo Affair, a sex/spy scandal that rocks the British government.
My Boy Lollipop, by Jamaican singer, Millie Small, tops the British pop chart in 1964.
British Member of Parliament Enoch Powell gives his infamous 'Rivers of Blood' anti-immigrant speech in 1968.
The West Indies 'whitewash' England 5-0 in 1984 Test series.
Paul Boateng, Bernie Grant and Dianne Abbott became the first blacks elected to the House of Commons in 1987.
