Gig theatre is cool! You get all the adrenalin of a music gig plus a story and acting and stuff. What’s not to like?
As we enter The Door, The Birmingham Rep’s 140-seater studio theatre, "Say Peace" by Common, featuring Black Thought and PJ, is playing on the PA (thank you, Shazam). On stage there is a drum kit, two synthesisers, a guitar and several mikes on stands. The room is full of haze, the lighting rig is set to muted reds and oranges and half the back row of seats has been taken out to accommodate the lighting and sound desks. The only anomaly is a red wing armchair centre stage, but make no mistake about it, this is a gig.
The bassist and keyboard player, Terry Smiles, enters and sets up a drum machine and synth pattern. Then the drummer, Hannah Ledwidge, kicks in and the star of the show enters. He is wearing a red beanie hat, a sparkly hoodie, jeans and trainers. He grabs one of the mikes and launches into a ferocious rap as the bass literally shakes the seats.
From then on, No More Mr Nice Guy moves between raps, slow jams and verse monologues. For all its looseness in style, the show is meticulously constructed, from the tight script to the gig-based structure of the whole show. The high energy opening goes into a call and response, audience participation number, then into the R&B "Cheesecake and Wine", featuring an amazing bass guitar solo by Terry Smiles, then an intimate, acoustic chat to the audience section followed by band solos and a rousing chorus to send the audience out on a high.
No More Mr Nice Guy is a semi-autobiographical story written and performed by Cal-I Jonel. He plays Keloughn Douglas, a conscientious and idealistic music teacher who is still haunted by his youthful ambition to be a professional musician. Running through the show is the question of how to be a better man. Is it to sacrifice your own ambitions to support others or to succeed on your own terms? At the height of an argument with his middle class solicitor fiancé, Carmel, she tells him to "man up". He wants to, but what does that mean?
Jonel engages seriously with this dilemma. Keloughn (pronounced Kell-on) is proud of his British Caribbean heritage; he is a good teacher, a good son to his parents and he loves Carmel. But feeling virtuous is not the same as the joy he gets from music, so which should take priority? The problem comes to a head when he is up for promotion at work. He needs the money to pay for his wedding to Carmel, but "Cheesecake and Wine" has turned into a surprise viral hit. Should he risk everything and follow his dream or work towards financial and emotional security with teaching and Carmel?
Not only does Jonel write, rap, sing and play all his own songs and poetry, he is also an excellent actor, and he slips effortlessly between the various characters who inhabit Keloughn’s world. They include the deputy head who wants to see Keloughn get on, Becky, who is coaching him before his big interview, various schoolchildren in his class and the music exec who calls him Kellogg and tries to fit him into a marketable musical stereotype ("you’re not Central Cee").
The racism that Keloughn lives with on a daily basis is expressed not through overt aggression but through stereotyping. If a white person is late for a meeting, then they are simply late, but when Keloughn is late, he is accused of working to Black People Time (BPT). This leads into a reggae-inflected number complete with rasta red, yellow and green lights running down the LED chasers.
Keloughn is determined to give his students the encouragement he was denied when he was young, and one in particular, Emmanuel, shows potential. Becky complains to him that another student, Alfie, is picking up Emmanuel’s style, which she describes as "gangsta". This is the final straw for Keloughn, it sums up a lifetime of microaggressions, but if you express any frustration, then you are an Angry Black Man, and the problem isn’t the injustice, it’s you.
It’s hard to avoid the parallels between Keloughn’s fictional musical ambition and the show we are watching. No More Mr Nice Guy is superb and it deserves a longer tour, but regional theatres are facing tough times, and I was watching it in a theatre which is facing a 100% council funding cut next year, so the issue of how to make a career in the performing arts is real.
I see plenty of shows that are good, but there’s a special tingle you get when you see the real thing, and No More Mr Nice Guy is the real thing. It is beautifully written and performed by Cal-I Jonel, sensitively directed by T D Moyo and the sound and lighting design by Khalil Madovi and Joshie Harriette respectively are subtle and effective. And it was lovely to see a sell-out show in Birmingham with an audience that reflected the ethnic diversity of the city in which it was playing.
The last stop on the tour is Bristol Old Vic, so if you can see it there then please do. If you can’t, then I hope it will tour again.