‘She put food on all our tables’: Yvonne Brewster, a giant of Black theatre remembered

When the actor and Nerve contributing editor Adjoa Andoh (RSC, Bridgerton) got in touch last week, it was to express her surprise and disappointment at the lack of response in the British press to the death of the black theatre colossus Yvonne Brewster OBE. Brewster died earlier this month at the age of 87 after a lifetime trailblazing and innovating in British and Jamaican theatre.

Born in Kingston, Jamaica, she came to England in the 50s to train as an actor at Rose Bruford College in Sidcup (reputedly the first black female drama student in the country), but she made her mark as a theatre director who championed and enabled black talent wherever she found it.

Fearless and inventive, she started the Barn theatre in Kingston in 1965 and ran it out of her father’s garage (after telling him he needed to move his cars). Her stature in her birthplace is such that her death was covered by all the Jamaican newspapers, and at length by the country’s main opposition party, the PNP. 

In London in the 80s, she set up the groundbreaking Talawa Theatre Company, which still exists, to promote black talent, and she paved a way for generations of black actors, playwrights and directors (including Lynette Linton, former artistic director at the Bush theatre, who cites her as hugely influential). In 1996, she co-launched the Alfred Fagon award, a leading prize for black British playwrights. Her intention was to be a part of the mainstream, to make people take note. “I’m not going to be faffing around the edges of the fringe,” she once said in an interview. “You’re not going to fringe me.” And her reach went beyond theatre: she moved in many circles of black creativity, engaging with the likes of CLR James, Darcus Howe, Margaret Busby and Linton Kwesi Johnson. 

She is, in short, a towering figure and here Andoh honours her memory in a conversation with her friend and fellow TV and theatre actor Doña Croll (EastEnders, Anthony and Cleopatra). Both women are grateful to have known her, to have felt her influence. In Andoh’s home in south London they discussed why she mattered so much to them and their industry.

Adjoa Andoh What is your earliest memory of her? Is it here or in Jamaica? [Croll was born in Jamaica]

Doña Croll No, it's here. I can’t remember exactly when I first met her, but I do remember my first impression. She was very much like my mother, in that she was a very light-skinned Jamaican woman who was given all the privileges of [being] white in Jamaica, and then comes to England and realises she's not [accepted as] white here. But she decided to ignore all that, all the boxes people tried to put her into, and to get on and do what she wanted with her life. Yvonne was always very sort of grand and we loved her for it. 

AA Yes, she was so confident and would breeze through a room. There was no social gathering of any stripe that Yvonne would not be comfortable in. I can’t recall when I first met her either: she was just always there. I moved to London in ’84 to do a play written by a black woman, starring five black women, directed by an Armenian Irish woman (Where Do I Go From Here?], and Yvonne started Talawa around that time and I would go and see everything that she did. We knew a lot of the same people. For me, coming from the Cotswolds then to Bristol and then to Brixton, Yvonne offered encouragement that this thing that I loved, that I didn't know I was allowed to do as a profession, I could actually earn a living at. People like Yvonne making work meant that I could exist. 

DC She was my mentor, really, and she looked after and encouraged me. Not just me. When she died, Linton [Kwesi Johnson] rang and gave a little tribute to her. He said how much she encouraged him in the early days when he was just starting to write poetry. She told him that his work was good, not to give up. Once she got to England, she understood that it was important to have a link between the work in Jamaica and here. She was a bridge between the two and that showed in the plays that she did – Derek Walcott, Dennis Scott, Trevor Rhone. She did Shakespeare as well as Caribbean writers, though.

AA What I loved about her was that she would gather artists. She understood great political minds, poets, musicians. She was the supreme networker and brought people together. She could get funding, she could get publicity. She published collected works of playwrights. She understood the importance of archiving. She was really good friends with Margaret Busby, who started [publishing company] Allison & Busby. She was just really connected to all the creative conversations and she made people feel that they could do anything. That there are no barriers. Or if there is a barrier, find a way around it because it's not your problem. Yvonne wanted flourishing creativity with no barriers for anyone. As with when she directed Doña as the first black Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra. 

DC The first that we know of. 

AA She made you feel – why can't we do Lorca? Why can't we do Wilde? We can do whatever we want.  

DC After she went back to Jamaica and opened the Barn she got fed up, because Jamaica is very small. You're limited there. So she came back and started working for the Arts Council. That taught her where to put the knife in to bleed a little money out of them. She put food on all our tables. At that time every job I did, usually working with white companies, I was the only black person and I’d get to the end of the show, get great reviews and everyone would have a job to go to and I’d have to sign on – wait a bit until the next [black] part came up. But Yvonne said: “No, no, we can play anything.” It really opened my eyes. 

AA Her legacy needs to be celebrated and earmarked because of the way society still is if you are from a community that doesn't have access to everything for whatever reason – location, income, race, housing. The confidence to think “I can go into any room and I can do what I want” has to come from somewhere. You need people that say “go on” and “yes you can”. 

That's the work that we have to continue now. You pay it on. Like with the Ezra Collective, who won the Mercury prize and the first thing they did was shout out their youth club leaders, provide them with instruments and say: “What do you want to do?”. You need these people, the great encouragers who sort of stand in their own confidence and their own gifts. Who will also say: “Brickbats be gone. Not interested. We're moving forward.” That was Yvonne. A one-woman charm offensive – and I know it’s a cliche, but we are all standing on her shoulders.

DC For me, her greatest achievement was getting that theatre space in Southampton Row [the Cochrane theatre in central London where the Talawa company was originally based]. We’d never had, and we still don't really have, a black artistic space in London – when you think of the population, the demographic, what black people have contributed to the artistic communities. And Yvonne understood that: it was always her ambition to have a building for us where she could train set designers, costume designers, actors, set up everything to tell our stories. 

AA I couldn’t believe the lack of coverage of her death. It would be wonderful to celebrate her achievements as a trailblazer in this country, say at the National Theatre – that would be amazing. Certainly, there should be something. I know that there are a lot of theatre makers who feel very moved at her passing. We're doing a Talawa fundraising event next month, and I'm sure that she'll be well celebrated and remembered there. Bless her. She was incredible. Thanks, Yvonne, thank you. 

DC Yes, thanks very much, Yvonne. I wept when she died because I thought I'd have her forever.

Interview by Ursula Kenny

Over next 18 months Talawa will celebrate its 40th anniversary together with the legacy of founder Yvonne Brewster