The death of Nigerian immigrant David Oluwale is poignantly dramatised in Oladipo Agboluaje’s adaptation showing at the Hackney Empire this week.
When David Oluwale’s body was dragged out of the river Aire in 1969, the subsequent investigation led to the trial of two police officers for manslaughter. They were found not guilty, but both were convicted of assaulting the 38-year-old Nigerian. The light sentence remains, to date, the only successful prosecution of a police officer in British history.
Oladipo Agboluaje’s transfixing adaptation of the book, written by Kester Aspden after the case became publicly available in 1999, begins at the moment Oluwale’s body is discovered. The audience then plays witness to a jigsaw reconstruction of his life, gleaned from the tenacious notes made by Perkins, a Scotland Yard inspector who was dedicated to unearthing the brutality and prejudice which lead to Oluwale’s death.
Daniel Francis is stunning as the lead. Portraying the twitches and convulsions of a man subjected to powerful medication, shock treatment and continual beatings, he physically conveys the inhumane treatment of those deemed to be different. His contagious charisma in the scenes before and shortly after his arrival in the UK only makes his subsequent degeneration more haunting.
Perhaps excused by the new setting for this touring production, the play is let down slightly by some poorly positioned staging and the diction could at times be clearer from all.
But no audience could leave this production without feeling a shared understanding and utter revulsion of the brutalising treatment which can reduce a bright and confident young man to a cowering animal-like creature.
The Hounding of David Oluwale is showing at the Hackney Empire
24 March 2009 – 28 March 2009
Price(s): £16.50 – £14.50, Tue evening & Sat matinee £12.50
