It is fitting that an adaptation of Floella Benjamin’s memoir of her girlhood should encapsulate the spirit of children’s television. After all, it was Play School that made Benjamin a household name in the 1980s. This musical weaves misty-eyed flashbacks to that series – iconic lines, collective singing and clap-alongs – with a story of Britain’s Windrush-era racism from a child’s perspective.
But there is a great chunk of story that feels missing, for adults, at least. Adapted by David Wood and directed by Omar F Okai, the play circles around the early years but we never learn how Benjamin rose, so singularly, to become the face of children’s TV in an era of open racial hostility and little diversity on screen.
