Bristol’s bus boycotts and beauty pageants are the unlikely backdrop to Chinonyerem Odimba’s precious story of innocence infected by racism.

First performed at Bristol Old Vic in 2019 and recently chosen to be a GCSE English text, Odimba’s story of a Caribbean family working to lead a full life in 1960s Bristol has rapidly been recognised as a modern classic. The eponymous Princess (Morgan-Johnson) is a beautiful ten-year-old girl, obsessed with winning the Weston-super-Mare beauty pageant. Her brother Junior (Mante) is at an age where he should be seeking gainful employment, but the colour bar (a policy which denied black men this basic right in the 60s) means he spends his time working low paid jobs and indulging his hobby of photography. Their parents, Mavis (Skeritt) and Wendell “The Hustler” (Burrell) are estranged and it is Wendell’s sudden reappearance with a child in tow that changes the family dynamic.

In places this is an interesting observation of the corrosive and unifying power of racism. There is a sense of tragedy in seeing racism slowly strip the children of their hope and innocence. With Margot (Moss), Mavis’s best friend and the white neighbour from the floor below (exquisitely costumed by Laura Coulton), Odimba skillfully skewers the moderate position on race; her discomfort at the idea of a boycott harming Bristolians – white Bristolians – is laid bare. Pleasingly, she is a nuanced character with the audience given license to view her in myriad ways.

Slow pacing is present throughout: some scenes are superfluous, driving neither the narrative nor the characterisation forward. It is made more noticeable in the scenes where the script coalesces with performance and direction, notably in the conversation between Wendell and Margot about his problems with her flirtations with black men. This scene crackles, fencing with prose as rapiers.  Kidd’s soundscape pays homage to the era with the blend of musical styles acting a subtle reminder that Caribbean culture has been accepted even when Caribbean people haven’t.

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