Dolan Cummings
posted 8 June 2007

Brixton. The set of The Christ of Coldharbour Lane immediately evokes the urban streetscape of the famous London district, with all its chaotic bustle. Libby Watson’s design makes what on closer inspection turns out to be a Christian mural (Hieronymus Bosch in fact) look like graffiti, communicating the ‘buzz’ that gentrification can’t ‘bleach out’. And the first substantial speech is delivered in a thick Jamaican accent, a prison warden disparaging the African prisoner who has just been released. Brixton, capital of black Britain.

Any fears that the play will be unintelligible to the uninitiated are soon dispelled, though. While there is plenty of local colour and in-jokes-that-we-all-get-really, the dialogue is not ‘urban’ for the sake of it, and the all-black cast manages to portray white bit-characters with the liberal use of dodgy Scottish accents (another essential Brixton archetype is the Glaswegian drunk, invariably a Celtic supporter). More importantly, the theme of this new play by Oladipo Agboluaje (The Estate) is, if not universal, then arguably better for a play of this kind: current. The Christ of Coldharbour Lane takes inspiration from the religious marketplace that is Brixton High Street, but it is really about the gap between the promise of religious salvation and the stultifying sense of low expectations experienced throughout contemporary British society.

The three female characters in the play all see something different in Omo (Jimmy Akingbola), the naïve protagonist who disrupts their lives. For Dona (Nadine Marshall), he is a promising protégé, and her ticket to promotion within the Christian mission she works for. For Maria Maudlin (Dona Croll), he is a source of unexpected love, lifting her out of her cynical resignation to life as an ageing prostitute. For disabled former athlete Sarah Green (Kay Bridgeman), he comes to represent belief in miracles, and from there the possibility of a better world.

Perhaps protagonist is the wrong word for Omo, then. He believes he is the Messiah, but for the most part he touches the lives of the others in unexpected ways, and acts as a trigger or a catalyst rather than deliberately shaping the story. One might say that the protagonist is rather Brixton itself, or its people, who are inspired to transform themselves and their situation by Omo’s enigmatic intervention. It is fitting that the play should be an ensemble piece then, with the actors taking on multiple parts. The only really significant male character other than Omo is Robbie (Mark Monero), who only emerges as a distinct, ‘proper’ character towards the end of the play, by rising to a novel situation rather than building on any established traits. (Credit is also due to Javone Prince, who puts in a number of fine comic turns in miscellaneous roles.)

One reading of the play’s title would be that it is comical to imagine Christ in the gritty inner-city environs of Brixton. Hence, Coldharbour Lane is better than the more glamorous-sounding Electric Avenue, say. But really all place names are bathetic when they are familiar enough. ‘The Messiah? Here in Galilee? Come orf it.’ And when it came to Jesus Christ, bathos was kind of the point. To his credit, then, Olidapo Agboluaje seems to recognise that Brixton is not an unlikely place for a Second Coming at all. An authentic religious Event is all about transforming the mundane into the sublime, and if the mundane involves poverty of spirit, vice and hopelessness, so much the better. (Of course that’s an unfair description of Brixton, but the play is not an exercise in marketing.)

In the end, The Christ of Coldharbour Lane is about politics rather than religion. The appearance of Omo, combined with a tongue-in-cheek subplot involving a cooky conspiracy theory, provokes a political awakening across Britain. This isn’t convincing, but then it doesn’t have to be, since the point is to show that however exhausted our political culture might be, people still yearn for a better world, one way or another. If the play is overambitious in its scope, that’s better than being underambitious. The Christ of Coldharbour Lane is uneven, especially in its comedy, but ultimately it is life-affirming and invigorating. It’s not a play about Brixton, but a play for everyone.

Till 23 June 2007