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Deeply personal … Josette Bushell-Mingo in Nina: A Story About Me and Nina Simone at the Unity, Liverpool.
Deeply personal … Josette Bushell-Mingo in Nina: A Story About Me and Nina Simone at the Unity, Liverpool. Photograph: Andrew Ness
Deeply personal … Josette Bushell-Mingo in Nina: A Story About Me and Nina Simone at the Unity, Liverpool. Photograph: Andrew Ness

Nina review – searing tribute restarts Simone's revolution

This article is more than 7 years old

Unity, Liverpool
Backed by a brilliant band, Josette Bushell-Mingo mixes story and song as she connects her own life with Nina Simone’s

Josette Bushell-Mingo originated the role of Rafiki in the West End production of The Lion King. She founded Push, the black-led arts festival at the Young Vic in 2001, long before many in theatre had given much thought to diversity. And in recent years she’s been living in Sweden where she is artistic director of Tyst Teater. Now she’s back in the UK and she’s angry – and it fuels this deeply personal and often searing show inspired by the singer and activist Nina Simone.

Bushell-Mingo tells stories about Simone’s life, not least the one when the young girl was taken to a church with a white congregation and refused to sing for the gathered faithful after an attempt was made to banish her parents to the back pews. But this is nowhere near your typical biography show that charts a life and covers a body of work. Neither is it just a love letter from one great artist to another, although there is a wonderful section when she tells of what it was like to grow up in an era when minstrel shows were still broadcast and to suddenly see Simone on the TV and feel that she was singing just for her.

Watch a trailer for Nina - A Story About Me and Nina Simone

This show is far more ragged, potent and thoughtful than that, offering up the songs and moments from both these women’s lives and making connections between then and now. It asks questions about how you can use your voice to start a revolution, whether forgiveness is always a good thing, what level of threat constitutes self-defence and if violence is ever the right course of action. “How did we come to a time when we have to say Black Lives Matter?” she ponders, stamping her feet, each stamp counting out the number of seconds it took for a police officer to shoot the unarmed black Chicago teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times.

‘How did we come to a time when we have to say Black Lives Matter?’ … Bushell-Mingo in Nina. Photograph: Andrew Ness

This is not a comfortable watch, particularly for a predominantly white audience, and it’s a piece that still needs further shaping. Sometimes the falterings are quite deliberate, reminding us of the failures of the last 50 years to deliver equality. Bushell-Mingo launches into Simone’s Revolution, famously sung at the 1969 Harlem cultural festival, and breaks off halfway through to point out that one of the dictionary definitions of revolution is to turn around so that you end up where you started. “The truth is I don’t think a revolution has happened yet.”

It hasn’t, but just as Simone did, Bushell-Mingo is using her voice to help it along the way, even if it’s sometimes hard to keep singing when change doesn’t come. In the final segment of the show she delivers some of Simone’s best known songs, supported by an utterly brilliant three-piece band. What has gone before informs every note and lyric. In one of her songs, Simone declared: “I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.” Bushell-Mingo is still seeking an answer.

  • Nina - A Story About Me and Nina Simone is at the Unity, Liverpool, until 29 October. Box office: 0151-709 4988.

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