The black and black minstrel show

By Daniel Nelson

A musical about false allegations of rape, racial hatred, gross miscarriages of justices and the electric chair? Yes, sirree, that’s The Scottsboro Boys.

And it works. It takes an infamous story of injustice against nine African

The Scottsboro Boys

Image by Young Vic

The twist is that the minstrels are black actors, who also play all the white parts. They do it with virtually no props except the semi-circle of chairs commonly used in minstrelry, which become a train, a prison, a courtroom, the escape route in a desperate dash for liberty, and finally, in a brilliant touch, the bus in which Rosa Parks sat down for freedom in 1955. Rosa met her future husband at a Scottsboro Boys rally in 1931.

On stage, she silently shadows the boys through their life-sapping tribulations, and though the boys’ individual stories don’t end well, the Parks connection gives their travails a wider meaning as part of the national struggle for civil - indeed, human - rights. The case contributed directly to the scrapping of all-white juries. Last April, 82 years after the Scottsboro Boys original conviction, the Alabama legislature pardoned them, though as Benjamin Todd Jealous, president of the NAACP civil rights organisation, commented, “Unfortunately, Alabama still needs to confront its present”.

To turn a tale of such murderous malevolence into theatre, complete with fun and laughter, music and dance, is bold and brave – and successful.

The script is clever (as you would expect from the duo who created Kiss of the Spiderwoman, Cabaret and Chicago), the acting excellent, the songs rousing (though the best is the quiet demolition of a romantic hymn to southern life – for whites), the production supercharged. The only flaw is that the intensity of the story, the need to follow events spread over several years and the raucous, knockabout staging make you slightly punch-drunk.

Overall, however, this is a boisterous, skilful, entertaining couple of hours on an epic, shocking story that remains relevant today.

·         This review of The Scottsboro Boys was for the production at the Young Vic: the production has now moved to the Garrick Theatre until 21 February. Info: 0844 482 9673