A resolute, dignified young Sidney Poitier squares off against the paranoid forces of white 1950s Hollywood and the American political establishment in this electrifying drama from Ryan Calais Cameron. Unfolding in real time over 90 minutes it has the pace of a thriller and is written in a heightened, brutal form of classic, snappy movie dialogue. Amid all the zingers and putdowns, Ivanno Jeremiah delivers a performance of great strength and delicacy as Poitier.
I’ve previously known Cameron through his wonderful, loosely poetic expression of black male experience, For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Got Too Heavy, a runaway fringe hit that’s just made its mark in the West End: and Queens of Sheba, the female equivalent he co-scripted.
