Light and shade in Dark’s true story

Oct 3 2008 by Our Correspondent, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WE might have expected that a play about the life of a black DJ on the rap and hip hop scene of south London would have a fairly heavy dose of urban alienation.

In fact, Have Box Will Travel turned out to be a rather warm, even gentle and self-deprecating saga that was ultimately uplifting.

The writer and sole performer in what is presumably a heavily autobiographical story was Charlie Dark, playing the music-obsessed child of African parents growing up in modestly middle class circumstances in London and undergoing various angsts and embarrassments until he discovers his musical destiny and carves out a niche on the DJ scene, eventually signing, or rather blagging a major record deal.

Dark displayed exceptional performance skills. With subtle adjustments in his body language and facial expressions he transformed himself from a gauche teenager to a rising DJ and eventually a burnt-out adult recording star who achieves maturity and self-knowledge after a breakdown, even managing to be ruefully philosophical when his daughter is born not to the backdrop of jazz icon John Coltrane as intended, but to Girls Aloud on the hospital radio.

All in all, this was first-rate acting and the sixty-minute monologue was delivered faultlessly and with perfect clarity.

There was a strong physical dimension to the performance too, with some very funny (deliberately) bad dancing. Director Benji Reid’s music and staging for this Birmingham Rep production added greatly to the momentum and sense of journey.