Something Dark

Lemn Sissay

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781786822291
• eBook ISBN: 9781786822307
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Something Dark tells the true story of Lemn Sissay who as a baby was given up by his Ethiopian mother in the 1960s. He was renamed Norman Greenwood and nicknamed Chalky White throughout his turbulent childhood in care, only to find out his real name at the age of 18. No longer the possession of the social services, he left the brutal suburbs of Lancashire for the bright lights of Manchester where he became a celebrated performance poet. Aged 21 Lemn left for Gambia in search of his mother and the truth about his father.

1st Act

The stage is bare but for a black backdrop. The play begins with a juxtaposition of light darkness time and events.

From stage left LEMN SISSAY walks out and across the stage until he notices somebody and centre stage turns to face the audience. Immediately the lights shuts down plunging the entire stage into darkness.

LEMN SISSAY:

Dark. In Darkness always comes the question, Where is the light?

The light pours upon him.

Light. Light. It begs the question, Why was it dark?

The lights shut down.

Dark. Where is the light?

The light pours upon him.

Light. Why was it dark?

The light shuts upon him.

Damn. Darkness. Light, light. Light.

In centre stage the light pours upon him as he’s trying to tell the story.

The Story. The Child…

But events get in the way.

Waiter. Waiter, Waiter, can I get a little service here? A little service, here? I would like your finest light s’il vous plaît. I’d like one portion of light with a little light on the side, if that’s okay? Is that Okay? Damn. The Question. Darkness. Of course it’s okay! LIGHT.

The Story. The Child…

Look, I just want a little bit of light here. Is that too much to ask? I mean…in the great scheme of things; in the great who’s who of what’s what. We’ve got to fight for the right to light. Light is right. Light power. Friend of mine in New York says ‘Hey hey Lemn don’t be so heavy. Tune in to Light FM’. Heavy. Light. Heavy. Light. Light. Light. FM. Fuck me. FM…

‘Hey. Hey. Hey. No need to swear. No need to use profanities. There are children here.’

No there are not, it clearly says on the poster…

‘Hey. Hey. What about my inner child?’

Your inner child?

‘Yeah my inner child?’

Look it says on the poster no children and that includes your inner child.

The story. The child. The child inside a woman, the woman inside a bed, the bed inside a ward, the ward inside a hospital inside a city a foreign country inside the sea. Me. An island in an island in an island in an island. Me. Light.

Ladies and gentlemen. Shadies and Mentalmen. Thanks for coming! When I say ‘coming’ I don’t mean ‘coming’. It’s not like I say that anyway. All I wanna say is, you came and that’s good – my God, it’s great – I love it that you came, that you wanted to come; that you didn’t let other thoughts distract like ‘I’m going to… I’m going to…’ You simply came, which is after all a good thing.

We are all coming and going. A bus driver on the 73 once said to me where are you going. I said Marble Arch. He said ‘No……where are you really going?’ I got off the bus quickly, really quickly. Darkness. There I was stood on the Tottenham Court Road. Middle of the night. Darkness. Now there’s something critical about being out late at night. If you’re a black man – Something Dark. Taxi. Ribbons of yellow light flash past like the eyes of wolves. Light Darkness. Taxi. Taxi. Taxi. The light passes and pisses its yellow stream over me. I’m not pissed – I’m pissed off that the third pisshead passed. Darkness! I didn’t see it coming – the darkness. The mental stillness. I just saw the light run away from me. I just needed a lift. It’s not heavy. It’s Light.

So there I am on another day with a very good friend who you could describe as ‘white’. Six taxis go past as I try to catch one. Darkness. Let’s look at the odds. I am in my home town – whatever that means. It’s two a.m., I am hailing a cab and… not one but six drive by, they slow down, they look at me and they carry on. I put the bread knife away.

‘I’ll prove it’, I tell my friend, so I sit behind a wall. My friend hails a cab. The cab stops. We get in. ‘I don’t believe it’, my friend says, ‘six cabs go past and don’t stop cause my friend he’s…’

‘I stop for anyone, anyone’, barks the driver. Darkness. I look at my friend talking to the taxi driver and the taxi driver talking to my friend and I’m still behind the wall…folding up my darkness and gently placing it into my inner child’s mouth telling him Shut the fuck up! Damn it shut the fuck up – it’s only a cab! Listen to your friend, listen to the driver. Everything’s okay. Darkness. I hide behind a wall to prove why the taxi is hiding from me – in a mental stillness. Darkness.

The story begins proper:

It’s 1968. It’s the year of the Enoch Powell speech. The year Martin Luther King was killed and the year that the Beatles released The White Album. And she arri...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1st Act
• 2nd Act