Conversations, dispatches and ideas from the Bush Theatre.
Portrait, showing here 16-18 November as part of RADAR our annual festival of new writing, is an exciting debut solo show from writer, performer and rising talent Racheal Ofori (The Merchant of Venice at Shakespeare’s Globe). We caught up with Racheal to find out more.
Can you tell us about your show in one sentence?
Portrait is a satire of modern existence, told through the eyes of young witty black woman.
Tell us three things about yourself, one of them must be a lie.
1. I lived in Ecuador for a month and was very proud of how quickly I picked up Spanish. Don’t remember any now…
2. I once cut my hair to raise money for charity
3. I used to fancy myself as a rapper and knew the whole of Eminem’s Stan, probably still do!
What sparked the original idea for this piece and how has it evolved?
I wanted to experiment with topical issues, surrounding race, gender and class. It evolved into something more personal and based on my own experiences.
What excites you about being part of RADAR 2015?
Seeing all the other new writing!
Do you feel your work is inspired by, responding to or reacting against any work from wider culture?
I like to satirise pop culture in Portrait. I love how Kanye West is king of the rants and Miley Cyrus is the apparently the twerking pioneer.
What direction do you feel yourself moving in creatively, and what comes next for you as an artist?
Working to simultaneously act and write. We’ll see how that works out!
We’re compiling a RADAR playlist to play in the bar throughout the festival – we’ll be asking the audience and our Twitter followers to nominate songs that feel ‘on the pulse’, music (from any era) that they feel is under the radar and music that inspires them. What songs would you add to it and why?
James Brown’s Sex Machine. Not quite under the radar but definitely on the pulse!
