REVIEW: BLUD by Yan Toby-Amisi at Etcetera Theatre, Camden 12 – 15 December 2022



‘stripped to the bone and straight from the heart...full of pathos, fury and drama’ ★★★★

Blud is Daniel’s story. Comprising rap, prose, poetry and drama this is a fifty-minute journey through ten years in one life. We witness Daniel’s transition from adolescent to man; riding around on the back of a bus with mates, going to Uni, falling in love, becoming a dad. But this rite of passage is not smooth as the knotty negotiation of identity: race, class and gender interrupts and disturbs every juncture. 

Blud is the inside story of what it means to grow up black in multi-cultural, ‘woke’ London. Daniel’s formative years are spent on a north London estate that never feels safe and where muggings are a regular occurrence. Young inhabitants move in groups – or gangs – and carry knives for protection. This environment, the ‘block’ or ‘hood’, begets a survival instinct, useful because the ‘jungle’ doesn’t stop at the edges of the estate but spills into the wider world.

Written and performed by Yan Toby-Amisi (26) this is an energetic piece of storytelling, full of pathos, fury and drama. On a bare stage with no props and minimal lighting, Blud is a one- man show stripped to the bone and straight from the heart. Key relationships are constantly tested: a best mate is jailed for carrying a weapon; a girlfriend’s father fails to comprehend any potential barriers to attainment; mindless white friends touch his hair, squeeze his nose or insist he’s the DJ at parties.

Daniel tries to make the right choices, keeps his head down, studies hard, but discrimination, stereotyping and racial profiling follow him and antaganostic forces: systemic, institutional, hard-wired, informs a growing consciousness and suppressed fury. Attempting to manage his anger for fear of reinforcing negative stereotypes, Daniel resorts to ferocious cussing but eventually even that cannot contain his frustration.

Blud is a valuable piece of story-telling that enables the audience to climb into another man’s skin and experience the world through his eyes. In the same way that the book, Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine alerted America and the world to the endemic racism in everyday encounters, Blud similarly equips audiences to question harder, feel more and understand better. Engaging and empathetic, Blud is a story that needs to be heard in schools, on campuses’ and at festivals. Catch it while you can.

vant-gard.

presents BLUD

a solo theatre performance by Yan Toby-Amisi

Etcetera Theatre, Camden, 12th-15th December.

https://www.citizenticket.co.uk/events/etcetera-theatre/blud-1/

Reviewed by Nilgin Yusuf

An experienced author, lecturer and journalist (ex-Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph and ELLE) Nilgin is developing her first full-length stage play, supported by Mrs.C’s Collective and the Arts Council