Liberation
Inspired by true events in Black British history, LIBERATION is a powerful new play from writer Ntombizodwa Nyoni and director Monique Touko tracing the private lives of activists who fought to liberate Africa.
It’s 15 October 1945, Manchester. Africa’s freedom and future is in the hands of her descendants at the Fifth Pan-African Congress at Chorlton-on-Medlock Town Hall. With decades of championing change under their belts, emerging African & Caribbean activists and scholars offer new radical ideas of liberation. However, the organiser, Trinidadian activist George Padmore is unsure who to pass the baton to. Kwame Nkrumah is fuelled by an idealistic desire to become the first Black president of the Gold Coast. Young, resourceful Jamaican social worker Alma La Badie is grappling with the truth behind who must be sacrificed for the cause. And what of the revered Amy Ashwood-Garvey how does she ensure the voices of Black women are heard? A story of hope, friendship and the consequences of a long-denied awakening unravels in the conference halls and bars of Chorlton, but at what cost?
This groundbreaking new play developed 80 years after the Congress introduces the people behind the movement.
LIBERATION gets to the heart of how our future is built, how our leaders are made, and how dreams are realised. With generational shifts and gender politics added to a swirling mix of power dynamics, LIBERATION asks timeless questions about revolution, freedom, and what it means to be an activist.
Receiving its World Premiere as part of Manchester International Festival 2025, LIBERATION includes composition by Ife Ogunjobi from the Brit Award-winning Ezra Collective and was commissioned by the Royal Exchange Theatre.
Reviews
★★★★ ‘It’s a play that is, by its nature, all talk. Yet Nyoni and director Monique Touko manage to inject the proceedings with some theatricality and verve, recognising that there is no true liberation without joy.’
★★★★ ‘Monique Touko’s production, flowing over Paul Wills’s honeycomb parquet floor, is blessed with excellent performances.’
★★★★ ‘Liberation is an emotionally resonant new work commissioned by the Royal Exchange Theatre that brings to life a pivotal moment in Black British and African history.’
‘Touko’s immersive staging uses the round to make the audience silent delegates, complicit witnesses, and potential heirs to the speeches and conversations onstage.’
‘This is an ambitious production with a strong cast who all have important roles within the narrative.’
‘Liberation is a theatrical act of restitution. It wrests history from record and archive, drops it into our laps, and holds it there until we grapple with it. The Royal Exchange has birthed an ensemble piece that resonates far beyond its stage as intellectually, emotionally and politically relevant today as it was 80 years ago.’
★★★★ ‘Overlooked chapter in Black British history’
★★★★ ‘Ending to a standing ovation, this celebration of liberation, of radical hope, of the future of mobilisation rang throughout the applause. As we watched this brilliant play, colonial horrors are still taking centre stage in many countries around the world.’