Brown Girl In The Ring

 A Talawa theatre production

National Tour of Engalnd

Brown Girl In The Ring is a tragicomic monologue, a regal meditation on racism from a Royal Highness with a difference. The fact that black people are  biologically connected the European Royal families has never been so outrageously explored and exploded as in the persona of this one woman show

This play is inspired by Sophia Charlotte who is of African and German descent, and was married to the British King George the III.  And was also influenced by the story of Queen Marie Theresa, consort of Louis XIV King of France. “In 1665 his wife .bore a mulatto child from her black servant. The doctor explained the colour by saying; ‘ the black man looked at her.’ The King replied wrathfully; ’it must have been a very penetrating look’. The child was locked away and the public was informed that the queen had a miscarriage.” 

What the critics said:

`The funniest satire about the royal family I’ve ever seen’

‘All hail the Queen’

‘A  right royal rumpus’

Mason-John plays a quintessentially English aristo-brat, with a dark shade of cocoa, is by no means an assault  on royalty, but more of an extension  of our vision of royalty. After all nobility comes in many colours.  She is one of our most adventurous performance artists – a veritable monarch of marauding mayhem

Valerie Mason-John in a brilliant captivating thought provoking solo performance carried her audience down the memory lane of history of the colonisation of the Black people