mandla rae: On Rejecting Pity and Falling in Love With Film
Image credit: Graham Clayton Chance
as british as a watermelon was two years in the making. “Originally, it was a live show for Contact, but because of the pandemic, [the theatre] asked if I could create a film.” mandla rae’s (no capitalisation, no pronouns) initial reaction? “I was scared. I knew nothing about film.” Nevertheless, mandla took the plunge. Two years and a successful Edinburgh Fringe run later, the show makes its live premier in Manchester at the Black Gold Arts Festival later this week.
Full disclosure: we’re avid fans of the piece, which sees mandla, through poetry, storytelling and sumptuous visuals, delve into a selective memory to unearth and reassemble fragments of a traumatic past. mandla’s enigmatic persona treats tales of asylum, migration, adoption and abuse like the many watermelons featured— tangible objects to be regarded, explored, cut open and destroyed. Their destruction is profoundly satisfying…
Image credit: Graham Clayton-Chance
…and reflects a defiant undercurrent in mandla’s work. “I don’t want pity… I don’t want to spell things out. It is as it is: wobbly and wonky.” Watching the round-faced, cheeky smile, you soon realise that pity isn’t an option. Behind the white teeth, mandla— “It means power”— seems ever-so-slightly dangerous.
Since collaborating with director Graham Clayton-Chance and producer Jayne Compton, mandla says, “I have fallen in love with film.” But the live show is a different beast altogether. Originally designed to be small-scale, the pandemic has flipped the script. “Studio shows are out of the window for now, unless you want seven audience members.” Instead, the performance will happen in Contact’s largest theatre space.
Image credit: Graham Clayton-Chance
Such challenges have become routine. Looking back over the last few years, mandla muses, “I’ve had opportunities to push myself. [Before 2020] I had never done a solo show.” One important source of inspiration was Bryony Kimmings’ standout, one-woman show I’m a Phoenix, Bitch, which was a highlight of Edfringe 2019. mandla, then working at Edinburgh’s Summerhall venue, realised: “I’m interested in making work outside the usual lens of what audiences expect.”
And yet, mandla aims to gradually move away from performing and return to a first love: “I’m a writer. I write. I would do it even without [an audience.]”
Black Gold Arts Festival and Contact present as british as a watermelon. LIVE at Contact, Manchester, 23rd - 27th October 2021. Book tickets here.