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Hayden
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Mickey Jo
a show that we recommend. Do you like being educated on things that entertain but don't matter? Well, then you need to be listening to the Podcast with Knox and Jamie
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Hayden
Every Wednesday we put together an episode
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Mickey Jo
dedicated to delightful idiocy to give your brain a break from all the serious and important stuff. Whether we're deep diving a classic movie, dissecting the true meanings behind the newest slang, or dunking on our own listeners for their bad takes or cringy stories, we always approach our topics with humor and just a little bit of side eye. And we end every episode with recommendations on all the best new movies, books, TV shows or music. To find out more, just search up the Podcast with Knox and Jamie wherever you listen to podcasts and prepare to
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Hayden
make Wednesday your new favorite day of the week.
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Mickey Jo
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- [02:43]
Mickey Jo
as the saying goes, if I had a nickel for every time I had burst, literally burst into tears watching a father emotionally reconnect with his son during the second act of a musical at at Soho Place, I would have two nickels one which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it's happened twice. Let me tell you all about the new musical which harnessed my tears, AKA the Boy who Harnessed the Wind. But just before I do oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I'm an independent theatre critic and content creator here on social media and towards the end of last week I was invited to see the opening night performance of the Boy who Harnessed the Wind at at Soho Place in the West End. The show had a world premiere run a couple months ago at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon and it has now arrived in London. The musical is based on the film of the same name, which itself is based on the memoir and real life of William Kamkwamba. Only in depicting the plight and salvation of his village, his family, his community, it actually tells a far bigger story than just his Today I'm going to let you know all about this show, about its original score, its performances, the structure of the narrative. But if you have had the chance to see it already for yourself, I would love to know what you thought in the comments down below. And if you enjoy listening to my thought, would like to hear more of my theatre reviews. Then you can find many more of them wherever you are seeing my face or hearing my voice right now. But there will also be more coming soon. Make sure that you're subscribed here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. Or if you would like to stay up to date with every single show that I see at the theatre and every single piece of content that I share about it. The easiest way to do that is to sign up to my free weekly substack email newsletter. The link to which you can find in the description of this video, but with no further introduction, let's talk about the Boy who Harnessed the Wind. So a little about this story then. It is set in the early mid 2000s in a village in Malawi, a village that is hugely afflicted by flooding and famine. The true and inspirational story of William Kamkwamba, one that has been told in newspapers via TED Talks, on the page and on screen, and now on stage, is that he built a windmill in order to provide harvest annually and save his family, save his community from starvation. And he did so, according to the musical, in spite of a lack of formal education and the disbelief of all of those around him. So it's an obviously inspirational story. It's also an incredibly moving one because the story, like I said, is bigger than just William being inspired to do this thing in order to provide for his family. It's also a story about how he connects to his father. It's a story about generational change and a family culture coming together in this time of real turbulence and strife. An entire community, really. The show and its material has an awful lot to say about the change in culture from one generation to the next and the faith that parents have to have in the abilities and aspirations and dreams of their children. Now, the musical has been written by Tim Sutton and Richie Hughes. Tim is the composer, Richie the book writer. The two of them collaborating on lyrics. And the way that it's framed I really enjoy because we commence with a sort, sort of spiritual approach to the story and this ancient tale, both of the nurturing wind personified on stage via movement, as well as the prowling hyena representing hunger and death. And I love that this feels so authentically rooted in the culture which it depicts and strives to uplift that as well. If you think about it, culture from the African continent has been depicted in, in two of the most prevalent, long running successful Western commercial musicals in the West End and on Broadway and touring around the world. One of them, in a way that has striven to be meaningful and authentic and embracing of that culture, even though it's not telling, you know, like the story of the people of any particular community within the continent of Africa. I'm talking about the Lion King. The Other deliberately satirizes the Western perception of what African community looks like. I'm talking about the Book of Mormon. And so in the face of both of those theatrical juggernauts, it feels overdue that we have a musical. And obviously, I can't speak to the extent to which this is accurate and authentic, but it feels meaningfully staged by a talented cast, by passionate creatives with thoughtful dramaturgy as well. And the story being told here is truly one of community. It's ensemble storytelling, the likes of which we've seen in shows like Come From Away. But the one that it reminds me the most closely of is in the Heights. And that is not without its shortcomings and disadvantages, essentially. I love that we are able to tell so many different stories, that we are able to investigate the lives of so many different people with depth and nuance, and that it isn't a singular protagonist. At the same time, that sort of overtakes William's story to a certain extent, and on occasion, he feels like the least nuanced person on stage. The way in which he is portrayed within this production doesn't necessarily remind us of how young he actually was. And we are met immediately with this young character who we are told has a passion for inventing and who is constantly fixing things and who is tinkering and spends a lot of his time at the local sort of junkyard scrap heap looking for interesting little things that he can make into larger inventions. We don't get a huge amount of insight into what motivates him there. And heading into the second act, because it's only really after the interval that he begins trying to create this windmill which is going to be the real focus of the show. His impetus would seem to be the devastation that he is seeing around him that is affecting his own family, his sister, his mother, his father, the lives of their neighbors and their friends. And he sings about his determination and he is utterly sort of single minded in this pursuit, trying to persuade all of his family that this is the right thing to do and try to convince them that he is actually capable of this when they have no belief in him. But we, the audience, kind of just have to take it as read that his desire is to end the pain and suffering that he is amidst. There are also moments like when the family have to vote between them about which is going to be the only meal of the day that they eat. When they have to go down from two meals a day to one, they vote for supper, he votes for breakfast. When asked why, he says it's because he likes breakfast. So he's still coming across as youthful and naive and kind of unknowing of the real gravity of the situation, which doesn't pair well, obviously, with the sense of what his motivation is. And I don't think he necessarily has to feel naive in order for his father to feel thoughtful. But we do get brilliant depth and real insight into what his father is struggling with emotionally. And it's through him, specifically in his relationship with William, that I think we really access the emotional heart of the story, which is bigger than a windmill. It's bigger than a famine even. It is about, like I said, one generation putting their faith in the next. The other component of democratizing the story and portraying an entire community is that it does feel a little overstuffed. The show is probably, in each of its acts, that little bit longer than it ought to be. You could probably cut 10 minutes from both of them and the whole Thing would run at a slightly slicker pace. We'd have a stronger sense of what the primary narrative is the entire time. I think William ought to arrive at an I Want song a little bit earlier. It feels like the first one that he really has only arrives in the second act because that's how long it takes us to set up, you know, the main premise of what's happening here, with an awful lot of backstory and context leading into the famine. There are also a lot of moments you could streamline simply because they seem to happen twice. William, towards the end of the show, asks his father if he can dismantle the family bicycle, which is a really important asset for the family, for his father. And so he is reluctant to say yes to this, especially because he doesn't believe that this is going to be worth it, that William can actually pull off what he is trying to achieve. So he says no. They ask him again. William enlists the help of a couple of other friends. They all ask him together. He still says no. And there are a handful of moments like this where the same thing, functionally, in terms of the narrative, happens more than once. William has a sort of a falling out with his close friend Gilbert, whose father is the chief and sort of spiritual leader of the community. They have a very close, fun, playful friendship in the first act. Their friendship becomes strained in the second, and there are a couple of different occasions when William tries to reconnect with him, but Gilbert gives him the cold shoulder. And this just happens a few too many times. We got the idea convincingly the first time. William, also, I always say, befriends, is befriended by a stray dog who follows him around, who is portrayed on stage via puppetry. And as we delve into the real cruelty and horror of famine and starvation in the second act, there are a lot of moments when the dog sort of squares off against the hyena, which is the representation of. Of this terrible thing that is happening to them all. And the consequences of this are heavily foreshadowed. But it just happens again and again and again, and eventually we get the payoff, but we don't need to do it so many times. That being said, and I'm leading with a lot of critique here, I think this is a really beautiful, hugely moving story. I sobbed multiple times through the second half of the second act, and there are four or five really great songs the likes of which only come around a few times a year. And I feel like it's been a little while since I've been able to Hear some really great songs that make you stop and sit up as you're applauding them at the end, noticing that there's a really strong audience reaction and thinking to yourself, wow, that was a really great number. This has four or five of those. I like the song that William has. Oh, the lyric is something to do with magic. Here we go. Something more than magic. That's a nice song. Mfala Boy's Power is one of the first really vibrant connecting moments of the score. But thereafter, we get a bunch of. In a row, there's a song called the Girl in the Marketplace, which is a sort of a flashback to the courtship between William's parents. His mother is singing this song, recalling this story of how she met their father to their daughter, who is in the middle of a sort of a courtship of her own. That is a really great song. It's wonderfully staged, and it has this great lyrical hook that keeps coming back. It's also one of the first moments, and I think they frame the show musically really well. So you never really ask this question, but it's at that point that you go, oh, this absolutely needed to be a musical. There's a song I just love that opens the second act called It Won't Work William. And if you were to shift the narrative forwards a little bit, then that wouldn't be the brilliant Act 2 opening anymore. But that is a song in which everyone in the community around him is singing to William that his invention is going to fail, basically. But the strongest song, I think, in the entire score is the song sung by William's father. I made the in the Heights comparison before, partially because it feels a little familiar of Inutil from In the Height, the song that Nina's father sings about his relationship with his father. And interestingly, there's a whole Pray for Rain comparison that we can also make and how that has shaped the kind of father that he is going to be and how he is going to think of the next generation. And both men are sort of stuck right on the verge of a moment of discovery, of like, oh, I ought not to be the father that my father was to me, and I ought to trust and listen to my child, basically. And that song is called this. I know in this show it's reprised in the second act. It is sensationally performed, but it's just a really wonderful piece of writing. And the role of William's father was played on screen by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who also directed the film. And so it stands to reason that he should have such emotional heft and dramatic thrust lost in the narrative. And it's perhaps a little bit at William's expense as a character, but it also makes for great storytelling and it is explicitly the thing that made me cry. Let me carry on and next tell you about some of the performances of this wonderful company.
- [15:26]
Stephen
What makes a leader worth following? What should you really care about in your job? As technology is changing so quickly, is it just gonna be about machines talking to other machines? I mean, should you quit your job and start something on your own, what would that take? What does success and risk look like when we're all at the starting gate together? These are the questions we answer each week on Lead Human with Jack Myers and Tim Spengler.
- [15:48]
Mickey Jo
Join us each week and subscribe at
- [15:50]
Stephen
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- [17:15]
Mickey Jo
So William is played by Alistair Nwachukwu, and I really love the focus of his performance and the determination. And there is still a boyish youthful quality. The way that these roles are cast with entirely adult performers I think merits some level of suspension of disbelief because he doesn't really feel like the kind of age that William actually was during this chapter of his life. But he has this, I think, very effective sort of emotional mystery about him. He is surrounded by personalities like his best friend Gilbert, like his sister, his parents, who are a lot more forthcoming in their emotional Responses in their inclinations, more vibrant, outgoing personalities. And he throughout the show has this narrow eyed focus to him, which prompts us to lean in a little bit. It creates a sense of intrigue. The role is well sung. Occasionally there were a couple of tonality moments that will get better, I imagine, throughout the run. Sophiso Mazabuko is playing his father and this is really one of the performances of the show. His rendition of that number that I was telling you about is sensational, incredibly moving, as he is really grappling with the frustration of his circumstances and determinedly trying to plant something and cultivate food for his family as he is contending with what feels like a personal failing and taking a certain amount of that out on his son and eventually walking the difficult road to meet him where he is. It's a beautifully nuanced, just really well crafted performance in conjunction with Madeleine Appaia, who is playing his wife William's mother. And she is both thought provokingly wise and charmingly strict when she is instructing her daughter not to commence any kind of a romantic relationship, even after telling her this gorgeous story of how she met her father and how they were shunned by their families for going against tradition and moving away and leaving the community. A decision that her daughter will eventually have to make for herself when considering whether it would be better for her family that they have one fewer mouth to feed. Madeleine as Agnes has a line towards the end of the show that is so striking that at the press night performance there was a sort of an audible sort of of agreement and recognition that slowly turned into a round of applause and she had to kind of just hold this moment for a long time on stage due to the perhaps unexpected response. It's their reaction and everyone's reactions to Williams that really take custody of the emotional impact of the show. Lots of other great performances in this company. Eddie Elliot doing fantastic work, I thought, in a couple of different roles within the ensemble cast. McCallum Connell also bringing an awful lot of gravity and power as the chief. His story becomes embroiled in a lot of the political background of the show, some of which I think could be explained to us a little more thoroughly. Not to add material to something that I already called a little overstuffed, but I wonder if we need a sad tale of the bozo kind of a number just to explain a little more of the political context of Malawi at this time. Idris Cargbo is playing his son Gilbert, also William's best friend. And this is one of the immediate Instant standout performances of the production. Idris is always going to command attention on stage. He has more energy than you would think capable of, of existing within a single human being. And he's often been reduced to a lot of, like, sassy, fun roles. And this is the first time that I've seen him have the chance to really dig into something with genuine emotional weight. And he's still going to make you laugh, bringing all of the comedy and vibrance that he always does to the stage. But playing this insistent, stubborn child next to William's more thoughtful and reserved character, he just shines in this. I think he's brilliant. And into the second act really gets to go there dramatically. Owen Chaponda and Shamaybob Egbe also have a striking little subplot as Mike Kachigunda, the science teacher at Williams School, and his sister Annie Kamkwamba, respectively. They are discovered by William and Gilbert to be in the midst of something of a flirtation when William is enlisted by Mr. Kachigunda to take these letters that he is writing to his sister. Mr. Kachigunda's bicycle has a light on the front that is powered by a dynamo. This being how William discovers the nature of that kind of technology, he is immediately fascinated and intrigued by it. Subsequently, when the headmaster, played wittily by Newshen Matthews, tells him that he is no longer permitted to attend the school because his family are not able to afford the tuition fees, he Blackmails William, blackmails Mr. Kachigunda in order that he may continue to attend science classes and make use of the the school library, where he discovers a donated textbook that has a picture of a wind turbine on the front. This is one of those sort of convenient inspirational story moments where he gets the impetus and perhaps that's how it really happened. And it was one of those consequential sort of fate moments. But the two of them together land some beautiful moments. And it's opposite Shammai that I think Alastair, as William, does some of his best work when they have some thoughtful conversations alongside a lot of sibling frustration. Finally, there is a trio of largely physical performances that I want to sing the absolute praises of because so striking, so emotionally impactful. One of these is given by Chulwelina Muntanga, who, as well as playing another character in the Village, also depicts the wind. And she's got this huge wig and this kind of billowing, draping, almost ball gown of a costume that she spins around in. It's. It's so regal. It's so majestic, looking like if Shaka Khan was a deity. Shaka Calico, meanwhile, plays the other side of that mythology, stalking around the stage as the hyena who eventually, in a really brilliant sort of dance sequence in the second act, enlists a couple others to his cause, rallying them around to this growing sort of pack of deadly hyenas. But it's the way that he moves. It's this light sort of little balletic pounce from one foot to the other. It's deeply animalistic and sort of instinctive, but also it's sinister. And it's just a great performance and a wonderful way, I think, of representing what feels like a deliberate cruelty of something like famine. The absolute horror that is wrought by that feels personal and harsh. Finally, Yana Penrose, via puppetry, portrays the dog Camber, who is just so wonderfully crafted, brilliantly directed, but so thoroughly brought to life. I love dog puppetry in any musical. We've been lucky enough to have a couple great examples of it this year already, but this is one of the most emotionally captivating characters in the show. Despite being an obvious puppet, it's a sort of a warhorse style puppet. It's one of those when we're not making any attempt to obscure the puppeteer, it's not meant to be entirely lifelike puppetry. It is indicative, but because of how well the dog is being portrayed and characterized on stage, our eye goes to that and we believe that that's what we're looking.
- [24:49]
Hayden
Howdy, howdy ho, and welcome to Fantasy Fan. Fellas, I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fangirls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [24:57]
Stephen
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [25:01]
Hayden
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.
- [25:10]
Stephen
That's right. Hey, hey. So each week you'll get my unfiltered raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [25:15]
Hayden
And along the way we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
- [25:22]
Stephen
Newsflash, I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find Fantasy fanfellas wherever you get your podcasts.
- [25:29]
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- [26:02]
Mickey Jo
inherently. Finally, then, let's talk about the brilliant creative choices made by this team and director Lynette Linton. I love the way that this entire production has been realized. I love the way that this story has been told. I think the material is fantastic. It is just. Just good musical theatre writing. But every facet of this production, visually, the way that it's staged, I don't necessarily know how well it played at the Royal Shakespeare Company. I think it works wonderfully at Soho Place. There are a few moments where I wanted a little bit more clarity in the lyric because the sound design was a little muddy. It's a challenging space to work in, if you don't know. It's often configured entirely in the round with this sort of a rectangular playing space. And they've converted, as they've done with previous transfers from the rsc, one of the smaller ends of the rectangular playing space to be the backdrop. So the audience is now watching in thrust, sitting around three sides of the playing space. And I like that it's not a total transformation. It's a fairly light dressing of the balcony levels. You can still see the room as it was, the space as it was. It hasn't totally taken over and masked what lay behind it. It's sort of just naturally growing out from what was there, as if this village has been built around its natural ecology. I mentioned the sound design that is George Dennis and Paul Groothwiss. The set and costumes have been designed by Frankie Bradshaw. And like the best of costume design, characterful, vibrant. The sense of character, the sense of location, the sense of distance that we get at every beat of this story is a real tribute to the careful work that Lynette Linton has done. Those things that you can take for granted in storytelling and that are so much, much easier to convey on screen, come across naturally and immediately on stage. I also like the way in which community is built and we get a sense of this place and these people as they slowly filter into the auditorium and they engage audience members in conversation and they're getting people to stand up and dance along. We're hearing sound in the background, transporting us to this place. I want to talk about the work that Cynthia de la Rosa has done on wigs, hair and makeup, because some of my favorite assistants aesthetic details in terms of character portrayal were in wigs. I'm thinking about the wig worn by the wind. I'm thinking about the streaks of white finger paint across the faces of the hyena. We also have to talk about the puppetry designed by Nick Barnes, directed by Laura Cubitt. And there was, I believe, at least, another animal. I think there was a chicken. I'm sure there was a chicken at some point. But it's the dog that you're going to leave thinking about. And I'm gonna have to deliver a bit of a spoiler here because we need to talk about this. We begin to get the sense in the second act that this dog is going to succumb to starvation. It's still devastating when it happens, even if we see it coming a mile off, because there are so many moments when the dog squares off against the hyena and is sort of sadly and with depleting energy, following William around begging for scraps of food while his family is sharing the few bags of grain that they have. The moment when the dog succumbs to its hunger is so, so upsetting. And William burying the dog is the thing that really catalyzes the moment of connection between him and his father. I guess it provides his father, as well as having had a talk about it all with William's mother, the chance to see his son's sincerity and dedication and take him a little more seriously. And obviously, the dog dying is always going to be an easy tug at the heartstrings. But the way that they stage all of this, the way that they lay the dog puppet down and then step away from it, the way that the puppeteer simply walks out of the playing space. And we all know what that means. It's really cleverly done. There's also. And while this is guarded by my warning about spoilers, some striking reveals in the set, including the moment of the dog's burial, because they literally pull up the ground beneath them to reveal earth, to reveal the soil in which seeds are being sown. When water appears at the end, after they have built this set piece, this turning windmill before our eyes, which is a really powerful moment of emotional release as we see this coming to fruition, then water cascading across the playing space. It's really fantastic. My favorite creative detail, though, of the entire production is just the visual staging. And it's Lynette Linton's direction in conjunction with Shelley Maxwell's choreography. Shelley is credited as choreographer and intimacy director, interestingly enough. And there are moments like the Girl in the Marketplace which are more out and out dance, which seem to my eye to really be utilizing African cultural movement language, but also just dance as a beautiful, ethereal storytelling tool. There is something mystical about it alongside William's pursuit of science. When we cut to the Wind to the Hyena, we have these two versions of a story being told in parallel, and I love that this production makes room enough for both of those. Those have been some of my thoughts then, about the Boy who Harnessed the Wind, and I can itemize everything that I appreciated about this show individually, but I think the best thing that I can tell you is that I was just utterly moved by it. This really made me tear up and cry on a handful of occasions in the second act. I got really excited about the the energy of it, about the composition, about the storytelling, about the portrayal of these characters. There is so much to enjoy about this show. This is, I think, just a really great piece of new musical theatre that everyone should go and check out at Soho Place. And if you have had the opportunity to do so already, please let me know what you thought of the Boy who Harnessed the Wind in the comments down below. Or of course, if you saw it at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford Upon Avon. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to my review. I hope you enjoyed if you did. There are plenty more where that came from. You can check out those that I have already shared or subscribe here on YouTube or follow me on podcast platforms for many more coming soon. You can also, if you want to keep up with everything that I'm seeing on stage and everything that I'm saying about it, sign up to my free weekly email substack newsletter. Not all of those words were in the right place in that sentence. The link to which you can find in the description of this video. In the meantime, I hope, as always, that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day for 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theater. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day. Subscribe
- [32:39]
Hayden
Howdy, howdy ho and welcome to Fantasy Fan Fellas. I'm Hayden, producer of the Fantasy Fan Girls podcast and your resident lover of all things Sanderson.
- [32:47]
Stephen
And I'm Stephen, your bookish Internet goofball, but you can call me the Smash Daddy.
- [32:51]
Hayden
And we are currently deep diving Brandon Sanderson's fantasy epic Mistborn. But here's the catch. Steven here has not read Mistborn before.
- [33:00]
Stephen
That's right.
- [33:00]
Hayden
Hey.
- [33:01]
Stephen
Hey. So each week, you'll get my unfiltered, raw reactions to every single chapter.
- [33:05]
Hayden
And along the way, we'll do character deep dives, magic explainers, and Steven will even try to guess what's next. Spoiler alert. He'll be wrong.
- [33:12]
Stephen
News flash. I'm never wrong. Episodes come out every Wednesday, and you can find fantasy fan fellows wherever you get your podcasts.
- [33:20]
Mickey Jo
Okay, caller one wins courtside seats to tonight's game.
- [33:25]
Hayden
What? I won floor seats.
- [33:26]
Mickey Jo
You did?
- [33:27]
Hayden
I've been calling for 13 months.
- [33:29]
Mickey Jo
Wait.
- [33:29]
Hayden
Chris. Yes. I finally did it. What are you gonna wear? Men's Warehouse. They've got today's looks for any occasion, and I need to look like a celebrity.
- [33:37]
Mickey Jo
Don't want to stick out.
- [33:38]
Hayden
Exactly. They've got Chill Flex by Kenneth Cole, Joseph Abboud, and a tailor at every store for the perfect fit. Congrats. You can stop calling now. Not a chance.
- [33:46]
Mickey Jo
Hit any look for every occasion at Men's Wearhouse. Love the way you look.
- [33:49]
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