20 March 2025
“They say there are three things certain in life – death, taxes and Mr Parks getting contracts signed”
Readers may not know that I was a film critic from the late 1970s right though to the 1990s, and I love the Golden Age of Hollywood, so this historical political thriller about 1950s Hollywood was definitely my cup of tea. The McCarthy anti-Communist witchhunts are in full swing, hundreds of actors, writers and directors in the film industry are being blacklisted and the civil rights movement is gathering pace as rising star Sidney Poitier stands on the brink of history as the first black man to a lead a mainstream drama in the history of US TV. A Man is 10 Feet Tall is the project, written by his childhood friend, Bobby, for whom this is also his big break. All Sidney has to do is sign the contract presented to him by smooth-talking New York studio lawyer Mr Larry Parks and surely stardom beckons. But there is a problem… NBC want him to sign a loyalty oath, denounce fellow actors Harry Belafonte and Paul Robeson and renounce communism.
“Hey I’m just here to get shit signed and mind my damn business. Page 35 and 39 please… hurry up you’re burning daylight”
This is Sidney’s big break but he’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. So which way will be leap? And what, if anything, is he willing to sacrifice? And will he be on the right side of history?
You have to applaud supernova hot-to-trot young playwright Ryan Calais Cameron – this is his second West End hit in 3 years after the two runs of For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy – and who has been compared to James Graham for his ability to write Big Issue plays on a human level. Both have written with wit, intelligence and insight about events they knew little about.
Graham was not even born when the Labour Parliamentary crisis at the heart of his first major play This House (commissioned by the National Theatre, where it was critically and commercially acclaimed, and was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best New Play) took place. Similarly, Cameron knew nothing of the work and career of Sidney Poitier before writing Retrograde and had to do a crash course in watching his films and do tons of research into his significance in black and Hollywood history.
“I looked up the Sidney kid. He’s a Black. He’s not even Harry Belafonte Black. He’s black-black”
Crisp direction by Amit Sharma matches the tension in the gorgeous script and we feel it rise from the minute Poitier enters the lawyer’s office… The script fairly crackles with jaw dropping statements revealing the casual underlying racism of the time and one-line zingers landing like powerful right hooks.
The three actors are all universally excellent – only Ivanno Jeremiah (I loved him alongside Russell Tovey as the gay mixed race couple in the Donmar’s West End season of Constellations) as Poitier is a holdover from the previous run at the Kiln Theatre. He holds the plays centre with dignity and grace. He was also in The Nether, the Royal Court’s disturbing deep dive into the online world of paedophilia with his current co-star Stanley Townsend. As the lawyer Parks, Townsend oozes charm and casual racism in equal measure, doling out the Alfred Hitchcock Scotch and tossing incendiary barbs with glee. I have loved watching Townsend on stage since I first saw him in Sam Mendes’ 1991 revival of The Plough and the Stars, by Sean O’Casey, alongside Judi Dench at the Young Vic, where he was cast against type as a very young Fluther Good. He works constantly on stage and screen and really deserves to be a much bigger star than he is. Oliver Johnstone completes the cast as Bobby. All are terrific and I fully expect award nominations to follow.
I was both surprised – and heartened – to be surrounded by a large multi-coloured audience on the non press night I attended: elderly black theategoers sitting in rapt attention as their history, their truth was portrayed on the West End stage for the first time. Change is coming thanks to dazzling new voices such as Ryan Calais Cameron. And long may it continue.
