Henry Box Brown – Edinburgh Festival Fringe – Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose

Henry Box Brown continues at Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose, Edinburgh until 27 August 2019.

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

This musical blends original Broadway sounds with spirituals and close harmony. It brings to life the true story of a young slave, from his birth in Virginia 1816 to his escape at age 33 after so much human tragedy, but determined spirit.

The true man went on to tell his story on stage and try to influence the course of the abolition of slavery, but that’s another chapter. This company of consummate professionals come to Edinburgh to offer a big show with immense heart in a packed, small theatre to help us dig deep, feel pain and reflect on the awful truth that this is not a past history but a present tragedy too.

Written by Mehr Mansuri is herself someone who has fled her own country of Iran, via school in the UK, to reach New York and write 15 musicals for the NY Children’s Theatre Company where this piece was born. It has been championed on this path by the Baha’i Unity Center of NYC. There are music and lyrics by Frank Sanchez and Mansuri, additional music and lyrics by Sam Urdang, Robbie Dillon and Jack Lenz, arrangement – Negro Spirituals by Renee Reid, Bob Francois and Kim Harley, and a crack Broadway theatre cast.

The audience cheered and rightly so. I hope that, in time, this same company will have the chance for a bigger staging of the full show. It is a story which needs to be told again and again, and here the melodies of Broadway and the beauty of the spirituals make the pain bearable. In the words of Henry “walk with me today… for tomorrow’s not ours to say”.  This particular cargo is ready for delivery to packed audiences here and across the UK and beyond.

Chris Grady