Jonny Wright’s cultural highlights

Jonny is a writer for screen and stage. He was awarded the Felix Dexter Bursary in 2017 by BBC Comedy and subsequently had a BBC sitcom commissioned. He has also written an episode of The Amazing World of Gumball for Cartoon Network and was commissioned to write a sketch for CBBC’s Class Dismissed. Other commissions include those from Immediate Theatre, Rattling Stick and Talawa Theatre. He has a comedy in development with Bonafide films, dramas in development with Firebird and Castlefield and a feature film in development with the BFI. He was commissioned by Sky to write an original comedy drama pilot for his show Punchline. Jonny is also  hip-hop artist, and is writing a hip-hop musical for The Royal & Derngate

Album: Being Poor Is Expensive

Bashy put his hiatus from music to great use. Not only did he make a name for himself as an actor, he accrued the money and platform to be able to release a bona fide independent rap classic as he came back into the music game with renewed fire in his belly. To quote a line from one of the tracks, it’s not just the usual rap ‘big bollocks’ bravado – this has a maturity and perspective I’ve not heard on a UK rap album in a long time. Old school reggae and garage samples, nostalgic references to Ian Wright and Pogs, political nods to Lumumba, this album nourished my soul and my mind. ‘How Black Men Lose Their Smile’ is one of many stand out tracks, and I think this album just gave me mine back.

https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/bashy/being-poor-is-expensive

Concert: Hak Baker

Gigs at Somerset House are always a risk due to their reliance on British Summer Time actually summering, as a rain-aborted Robert Glasper date night with my wife can attest. But on this night the weather matched Hak Baker’s ‘sunny East London’ persona. Baker is a throwback, a working-class singer-songwriter in an increasingly gentrified space. ‘You live once who cares about sleeping? We used to huddle ‘cuz we didn’t have heating.’ Baker might detail elements of his past financial struggles, but no doubt about it, he’s also here for a YOLO good time. Drinking beers on stage, daring the ethnically mixed crowd to join in with the N word when he sings ‘the old bill are always locking up my n*ggas’ – thank goodness they didn’t. A crowd member waving a Venezuelan flag to ‘Venezuela Riddim’ only added to the carnival atmosphere. When people threw their beers up into the air at the end, it left my wife and me smiling like teenagers at Glastonbury. Thank goodness it only rained beer; thank goodness we left our baby at home. 

https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/somerset-house-summer-series/hak-baker

Television: Spent

Writer-performer Michelle de Swarte’s new six-part BBC Two comedy series Spent details the life of Mia, a nearly 40-year-old model on the run from bankruptcy in America, who returns to her old stomping ground of Brixton whilst trying to keep up appearances. There was a Sunset Boulevard-type feeling of tragedy watching this protagonist trying to desperately cling onto her youth in a shallow world. The show touched on interesting topics of mental health and identity – I’d never seen a Black-Jewish Brixtonian on TV before, and the fact that Mia’s mum couldn’t get Challah bread ‘in south’ and had to settle for Kingsmill for their Shabbat offering was hilarious. There’s also a will-they-won’t-they love story with Mia’s lesbian ex who is now engaged to be married. Like Mia, it’s all very messy and very funny indeed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m001zpr5/spent

Art: Zanele Muholi

Zanele Muholi’s exhibition at Tate Modern is full of wonderfully striking photographs detailing the South African queer experience. From capturing its beauty at black beauty contests to showing scars of sexual violence, this visceral exhibition conjured up a range of emotions. Especially memorable was a wall with multiple photos of the same people over time as they went through gender transitions – particularly poignant when there was a gap on the wall which meant that person was no longer with us. The exhibition also taught me, for example, how pre-colonial Africa was in many ways more progressive with regard to gender roles and same-sex marriage; it was in fact the colonisers who used homophobia as proof that, in this case, South Africa was a country that needed ‘civilising’. Thank goodness for artists like Muholi providing a more truthful perspective. In their own words, ‘Nobody can tell our story better than ourselves.’ 

https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/zanele-muholi

Play: Before I Go

Fresh from his performance in the West End transfer of For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy, Tobi King Bakare proves he is equally talented with the pen. Bakare manages to hold the audience’s attention at Brixton House with his captivating performance and poetic words in a one man show about Ajani, a young guy who meets his maker at a BBQ and has to fight to earn his life back. In an era when too many young Black male lives are treated as expendable, it’s refreshing to see one treated with the care and compassion it deserves. Without it being a public service announcement, Bakare has a message for the mandem, and it was great to be in and amongst them in the audience to hear it. 

https://brixtonhouse.co.uk/shows/housemates-returns-before-i-go/

Jonny Wright

Jonny Wright is a writer for screen and stage.