Review: Paterson Joseph is Sensational in SANCHO

Paterson Joseph greets the audience with a mischievous smile and freely admits that he adapted Charles Ignatius Sancho's story into a one-man-showcase for his talents. If people refuse to cast you as the leading man in costume-dramas, go around them and write your own play. After painting himself with a few of the title character's traits - a subtle lisp, low-hanging paunch, and toothy grin - Joseph vanishes. As if by magic, Sancho appears and continues to narrate his own tale as he models for the era's leading portrait artist.

With a breezy patter, Sancho regales us with, and acts out, his incredible story. Born on a slave ship, he is orphaned after his mother dies and his father commits suicide. Because of his easy-going temperament, he is whisked away to serve as the plaything for three maiden sisters in Greenwich. Balking at the lack of intellectual stimulation - reading is forbidden to him - he runs away to serve as butler to Duchess Mary Montagu, who nurtures his inquisitive mind with an education of the highest order. Upon her death, he is left with a handsome annuity, which he gambles away.

At this point, Sancho selects a dancing partner from the audience and teaches her to waltz. Though he is a lisping, heavyset man, during this brief dance lesson it becomes clear why so many fell in love with Sancho. As portrayed by Joseph, he is the charming life of the party - magnetic, attentive, complimenting, and totally at ease - who never overplays his hand unto obsequiousness.

Returning to the narrative, Sancho speaks of his marriage to Ann Osbourne, a beautiful West Indian woman who utterly bewitches him. Joseph does double duty in their dueling tête-à-tête of flirtation, taking on the accents of both lovers to titillating effect. During this tour de force display, Joseph summons entire worlds with the slightest gestures; lowered eyes, hips slightly cocked upwards, and flared fingertips reveal a smitten lass. Moments later, a tilted head, slack jaw, and quivering grin shows the besotted swain totally out of his depth. Watching these exchanges fly back and forth with the breath of life convinces one that lovemaking is actually taking place across the stage.

Jumping forward in time, Sancho speaks of his family life, his pleasure as a man of letters, and his new job as a grocery shop owner. But something is not right. Smoldering beneath his usual suave manner, is a twinge of agitation. It turns out that he will vote today, making him the first Briton of African descent to do so. As a Black man and former slave, this option is only available to Sancho because he is a financially independent male with property. But he cannot locate his papers which declare his status. Undeterred, Sancho shows up anyway. If he is challenged and found wanting, he will face imprisonment. The challenge comes, and the constabulary are summoned to cart him away for voting without proper papers. Just in time, his son arrives bearing the missing documentation. With tears in his eyes, exuding gratitude to the heavens, Sancho takes these papers, kisses them and declares his vote.

As a character piece, Sancho: An Act of Remembrance is an absolute triumph. The emotional work that Joseph and his co-director Simon Godwin have invested is exquisite. Sancho is an absolute dandy and quite mannered; all the same, every moment rings true without tipping over into saccharine coyness. In assuming the pose of a very model Briton, Sancho communicates that he is a gentleman regardless of race or rotund figure. Though strikingly handsome, Joseph's transformation is such that we completely embrace him as a delightfully effete wit suffering from gout, as opposed to the leading man that he is.

At issue is the lack of suspense. The show is essentially an episodic monologue, or hour long chat during which very little actually happens. Even when flustered by events with potentially dire consequences, one never doubts that Sancho will overcome whatever ails him. In narrating his own story, he has omitted the juiciest, most frightening bits. But even with that lack of drama, Sancho is an enjoyable romp through history that perfectly reflects the current political epoch. As Joseph pointed out during a post-show conversation, members of the Windrush generation - 500,000 workers and their families from former colonies invited to and granted citizenship in the U.K. - were recently threatened with deportation. Though the problem is currently being addressed, it is understood that if more stories like Sancho's were known, something like this would never happen. Thank goodness then that Paterson Joseph is here to declare the precedent.

Sancho: An Act of Remembrance plays at The National Black Theatre through May 6th, 2018.

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