Liberation
By Ntombizodwa Nyoni
Year staged: 2025
Opening night: 27/06/2025
Staged in: Royal Exchange Theatre
Cast Size: 10
Synopsis
It’s 15 October 1945, Manchester. Africa’s freedom and future is in the hands of her descendants at the Fifth Pan-African Congress at Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall.
With decades of championing change under their belts, emerging African & Caribbean activists and scholars offer new radical ideas of liberation. However, the organiser, Trinidadian activist George Padmore is unsure who to pass the baton to. Kwame Nkrumah is fuelled by an idealistic desire to become the first Black president of the Gold Coast. Young, resourceful Jamaican social worker Alma La Badie is grappling with the truth behind who must be sacrificed for the cause. And what of the revered Amy Ashwood-Garvey how does she ensure the voices of Black women are heard?
A story of hope, friendship and the consequences of a long-denied awakening unravels in the conference halls and bars of Chorlton, but at what cost?
Original Cast
Leonie Elliot
Alma La Badie
Eric Kofi Abrefa
Kwame Nkrumah
Rudolphe Mdlongwa
Makumalo Hlubi
Tonderai Munyevu
Jomo Kenyatta
Tachia Newell
Len Johnson
Pamela Nomvete
amy Ashwood Garvey
Joshua Roberts-Mensah
Joe Appiah
Bex Smith
Betty Dorman
Nicola Stephenson
Dorothy Pizer
Eamonn Walker
George Padmore
Production Team
Monique Touko
Director
Chinonyerem Odimba
Consultant Dramaturg / Director
Paul Wills
Set Designer
Sunny Dolat
Costume Designer
Matt Haskins
Lighting Designer
Alexandra Faye Braithwaite
Sound Designer
Nick Lodge
Sound Designer
Joel Trill
Voice and Dialect Coach
Bethan Clark
Fight and Intimacy Coordinator
Dick Straker
Video Designer
Video Animation Associate
Benjamin Persuad
Cache Thake
Associate Movement Director
Stef Reynolds
Factory Fellow
Chidi Lee
HR and Wellbeing Consultant
Movement Director
Kloé Dean
Samantha Adams
Dramatherapist
Uwarobosa Enobakhare
Grounding and Safe Practice
Robert Furey
Hodgkiss Assistant Director
Sophie Parrott CDG
Casting Director
Ali Kamara
Image Illustrator