Black Men Walking

Perth Theatre, September 25 to 28

For more than a decade up until 2016, Testament (aka Andy Brooks) had been well accustomed to performing his own words in music, rap and theatrical forms. When Eclipse Theatre Company’s artistic director Dawn Walton approached him to pen a new play that merged several centuries of black British history with the activities of a black men’s walking group in Yorkshire, he found himself stepping into a very different kind of creative act.

“Rather than play all the characters, which is often what I do, I was now going to have really amazing actors who are way better than me to embody these people,” notes Testament, whose previous stage works have included Blake Remixed and Woke.

“That was really exciting and an opportunity to broaden what I could do. It’s a different discipline writing for actors rather than for yourself. I come from a music background, so it reminds me a lot of the difference between working in a studio and working on live performance – maybe you are really good live but need to work harder on being in a studio.”

Putting the play together took around 18 months, with Testament working with director Dawn Walton, dramaturg Ola Animashawun, and movement director Chris Medelin (they needed to work out exactly how you represent hillwalking on stage and opted against the use of treadmills and went for more of a mime-style approach).

He was asked not to concern himself too much with the design and actions, and just to focus on the words.

“The beautiful thing about both theatre and spoken word, which is a strong element to the play, is that a turn of phrase or a simple gesture can signify that all of a sudden we’re in outer space or at a canyon,” states Testament. “Dawn very kindly asked me to just write what was in my head and not to worry about what it looked like.”

Testament has a place in the Guinness World Records for his beatboxing exploits (in Dublin in 2011, he led the world’s largest human beatbox ensemble) and has performed before everyone from Archbishop Desmond Tutu to the Dalai Lama and DJ Kool Herc, the man who is credited with originating hip hop. “The first time I met him, he was performing in a night club in Leeds, and at the end of his set he asked for some local MCs to get up,” recalls Testament.

“When I finished my verse, he stopped the show and basically told the whole room, ‘Nobody f*** with this guy!’ As a British MC doing an Americanoriginated art form, to get the godfather of hip hop’s blessing was massive.”