An illegal guesthouse in Cardiff’s Tiger Bay docks during World War Two stands as a multicultural refuge from the racist world outside in this enjoyable piece of hokum. Welsh landlady Gwyneth (Sarah Parish) and her two half-Nigerian daughters rub along in genial rancour with Caribbean, Arab and local white sailors, until a black American GI on the run upsets things. Love blossoms and wilts, and all sorts of drama and history is played out in an improbably short time - and in an impossibly small living/dining room created by designer Peter McKintosh.
The title, the over-neat plot of Diana Nneka Atuona’s script and the overemphatic acting of Tinuke Craig’s production recall a charming postwar British B-movie. Although films of that era wouldn’t have countenanced the diversity celebrated here: which is sort of the point. The message underlying the clunky narrative is one of freedom from restriction, racial or otherwise.
