Billy Bow

The final show of Curve's Inside Out Festival 2015 is this glorious workshop production of Ian Friel and Andrew Fisher's Billy Bow, the tale of how an abused black English woman escapes from her alcoholic husband and runs away to sea disguised as a man. Having grown up with tales of daring do related on her father's knee, Wilhemina , a freed slave, becomes Billy and joins the wartime British Navy in, one supposes, the 18th century just as England engages with the French. Of course life under sail is far from the fantasy her Father sold her but she figures anything is better than her abusive husband. 'Billy' falls in love with a black press-ganged slave who guesses 'his' secret. This fails to be a happy ending when the poor unfortunate is soundly flogged and then thrown from the mast-head.

Act two starts off with an hilarious bawdy song by the 'Portsmouth Polls', the working girls who gathered round the arriving ships like flies round tainted meat. This provides very welcome light relief to what is, by its very nature, a largely heavy story.

Two keyboard players, one on either side of the front stage, keep the action moving along in a production that, without dialogue, bears more than a passing resemblance in style to Les Miserables. The huge cast (I counted 34) more than fill the stage of Curve's Studio. Unlike many workshop productions this one does have a backdrop (a ship's sail) and plenty of barrels and boxes to sit and stand on. The theatre itself was imaginatively draped in various ropes to convey a seagoing vessel.

This is, once again, a Curve Young Company production and is a great example of how a theatre's engagement with the local community (in this case mainly DMU) can produce some very professional work.

Billy Bow is on again on Wed 6 May. There might still be some tickets available if you are quick.

First published in Western Gazette
© Paul Towers 5/5/2015