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Home › Explore the Archive › Browse › Period › Period: 1980's

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  • 65 With a Bullet 1989
  • Black Heroes in the Hall of Fame 1987
  • Black Jacobins, The 1986
  • Carve your Name 1981
  • Chameleon 1985
  • Chameleon 1982
  • Children, The 1988
  • Colour Black, The 1987
  • Cripple, The 1987
  • Day of Action 1981
  • First Impressions 1987
  • Fixed Deal 1986
  • Four Hundred Pounds 1982
    Refusal to pot the black in a snooker game on ideological grounds loses hero and his more pragmatic gambling partner similar sum of money.
  • Girl Who Wished, The 1985
    The Gril Who Wished is the story of a young girl who prefers to be somebody other than herself. The play explores the idea that role...
  • Grace's Story 1986
  • Hard Time Pressure 1980
  • Here Comes A Candle 1989
  • High Life 1987
  • Man and Soul 1981
  • Master of Carnival, The 1986
    Based on a short story by Euton Jarvis, which presents a veteran mask maker who sacrifices his life in his effort to win the carnival...
  • Miss Quashi and the Tiger's Tail 1987
  • Mother Poem 1989
    The stage adaptation of Edward Kamau Brathwaite's Mother Poem is a combination of dreams, memories and questions inspired by the island...
  • Nine Night, The 1983
    Hamon Williams has lived in exile in England for twenty years. He calls a family gathering to propose that the family can regain its...
  • Picture Palace 1988
  • Please And Thank-You 1986
  • Prime Time 1989
  • Pyeyucca 1984
  • QUICK, PHYLLIS: GRAB A DYKE AND DANCE YOUR WAY OUT: -IT'S A RAID!! 1987
  • Rhapsody 'n Black 'n White 1985
  • Rose's Story 1984
  • S Bend, The 1986
  • Silhouette 1983
    Silhouette examines the meeting between a young woman and the spirit of a woman who died a slave in the Caribbean 200 years ago.
  • Sticky Fingers 1988
  • Strange Fruit 1980
    A study of a black family caught between two cultures.
  • Tiger Teeth Clenched Not to Bite 1982
  • Trial And Error 1984
  • Twice Over 1988
  • Umongikazi 1983
  • Winds of Change, The 1987
  • Women and Sisters 1986
    The play centres on the anti-slavery campaign and in particular the writings of the African-American abolitionist and women's rights...
  • Scrape off the Black 1980
    London's East End in 1973. Trevor organises a surprise party on the release of his brother Andy from Borstal prison. But Rose, his bingo...
  • Dying Business, A 1980
  • Samba 1980
    Samba tells the story of Alfredo Lamas a 1950s former Samba King, now running a mini-cab firm. Once the star attraction of the Samba Club...
  • In The Mood 1981
    In The Mood focuses on two Caribbean Second World War veterans, whose nostalgic Remembrance Sunday lunch is disrupted by a visit from...
  • One Rule 1981
    Directed by Charlie Hanson this is a play about an ambitious reggae band. Tick, the idealisitic bassist of the band, challenges his...
  • Hungry Earth, The 1981
  • In Transit 1981
  • Meetings 1982
    Hugh and Jean are a middle class, successful, Trinidadian couple leading very busy lifestyles. Hugh becomes aware of something missing in...
  • Where There Is Darkness 1982
    Where There is Darkness examines the plight of a West Indian Man on the eve of his return to the Caribbean after an absence of 25 ,...
  • Case of Dr. Kola, The 1982
  • That Generation 1982
  • Sink or Swim 1982
  • Toussaint 1982
  • Fishing 1982
  • Fingers Only 1982
    Set in a small town near Lagos during World War 2 Fingers Only is the tale of three pick-pockets, Bab-Osa (master-pick-pocket) Magun Yaro...
  • On Duty 1983
  • Beyond the 'A' Penny Steps 1983
  • Smile Orange 1983
    A romp through a tourist trap hotel.
  • Shelter, The 1983
    The first half of this play takes place on a desert island in the late eighteenth-century where an upper-class woman and a black man in...
  • Two Can Play 1983
    Jim and Gloria smuggle their three children out of the country to what they believe will be a better life in America.
  • Sleeping Policeman 1983
    Sleeping Police examines Peckham, in South London, through the eyes of six of its inhabitants.
  • Outlaw, The 1983
    Having visited the United States, Gloria returns to her husband and to her home with new ideas about freedom within her marriage and...
  • Playboy of the West Indies 1984
    Based on J M Synges Playboy of the Western World,Matura's play opened at the Oxford Playhouse in 1984 and subsequently toured the UK...
  • El Dorado 1984
    Specifically set in 'The West Indies', El Dorado turns its attention to a mixed-race, middle class family interred in their formerly...
  • No Place To Be Nice 1984
    This is the story of Price, an unsuccessful business man who aspires to greater things. His life is a round of never-ending, ominous...
  • Redemption Song 1984
    Redemption Song is a blend of melodrama and ritual. A poet, Legion Bramble, returns to his island homeland during the Mummers' Festival...
  • Boot Dance, The 1984
    The play follows the disintegration and slow recovery of a young South African boot dancer who, after ten years alone in England suddenly...
  • Old Story Time 1984
  • Coming Up For Air 1984
  • Compound Images 1984
  • Money To Live 1984
    The play tells the story of the underpaid, yet independent, Charlene. Her vivacious friend Judy persuades Charlene to join her in the...
  • Success or Failure 1984
  • Downside Up 1984
  • Langbodo 1984
  • Week In Week Out 1985
  • New Hardware Store, The 1985
  • Blues for Railton 1985
    Tragi-comedy about a black immigrant family's experiences in Britain, fusing Afro-Caribbean rituals and rhythms.
  • Lonely Cowboy 1985
    A couple's attempt to start a cafe leads to comedy and then tragedy as they try to ban other values than their own from the cafe.
  • God's Second In Command 1985
  • Ritual 1985
    The play takes on the form of ritual by intersecting text with music and dance. The main character, Barzey, is approaching 40, and as a...
  • Basin 1985
  • Mamma Decemba 1985
    Mamma Decemba is a bittersweet play about an older Jamaican woman living in England who finds herself widowed, jobless, and deserted by...
  • Lower Depths, The 1986
  • Chiaroscuro 1986
    The play revolves around Aisha, Opal, Beth and Yomi who are brought together by the experiences faced as black women in Britain.
  • Pirate Princess, The 1986
    The Pirate Princess is set aboard a pirate ship where the notorious John Rackman, alias Calico Jack, leads a band of recalcitrants in his...
  • Waiting For Hannibal 1986
    Waiting for Hannibal is a drama of love, war, power and politics, played out in Africa in 204BC. The play charts and explores the...
  • Echo in the Bone, An 1986
    Crew, a black peasant, is missing. Maas Charlie, the white estate owner is dead. What killed him? The answers lie deep in the racial...
  • Soul Night 1986
  • Revo 1986
  • Have You Seen Zandile? 1987
  • Remembrance 1987
    Remembrance is the story of an eloquent retired teacher who cannot reconcile his anachronistic love of British culture with the evolution...
  • Moon Dance Night, The 1987
  • Tewodros 1987
  • Leave Taking 1987
    Leave Taking, first produced in 1987 at the Liverpool Playhouse, is a play about relationships, identity and the role of the past in the...
  • Black Sheep 1988
  • O Babylon! 1988
    The play is both the love story of Aaron and Electric Gyal, and the story of the Trench Town community's strugle for survival against the...
  • Slipping into the Darkness 1988
  • Trinidad Sisters 1988
  • Blood, Sweat and Fears 1988
    A fast food restaurant create problems for a black employee when it is discovered he is suffering from Sickle Cell Anaemia. Part of the...
  • Where To Now 1988
  • Temporary Rupture, A 1988
    The man you love, the father of your child, does a bunk at the alter, and disappears out of your life. What do you do? You probably...
  • Island Life 1988
    The hopes and fears of three women in an old peoples' home.
  • Ragamuffin 1989
    Ragamuffin is a man on trial. In the 'Supreme Court of Afrikan Justice' he has been indicted for his role in criminalizing the black...
  • Hero's Welcome, A 1989
    A Hero's Welcome follows the story of three young women growing up in the Caribbean in 1947 and the men who seem to offer a way out.
  • Beef, No Chicken 1989
    Set in Trinidad, Beef No Chicken is a tragicomedy about a small town facing the encroachment of a six-lane highway.
  • Take Back What's Yours 1989
    Although Beatie longs for the idyllic Dominica of her past, where she intends to marry Ronny, she is blind to the tensions that her dream...
  • Back Street Mammy 1989
    Back Street Mammy explores the consequences of a one night stand.
  • Gods Are Not To Blame, The 1989
  • Rock in Water, A 1989
    A Rock in Water was commissioned by the Royal Court Young People's Theatre, to examine the life and work of Trinidadian journalist and...
  • Choo Choo Ch'Boogie 1989
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