Preview: One Night in Miami, Bristol Old Vic

Before they were icons they were friends…

25 February 1964: Cassius Clay is crowned the new heavyweight champion of the world and celebrates with three of his closest friends – activist Malcolm X, American football icon Jim Brown and soul star Sam Cooke – in a downtown Miami motel room.

One Night in Miami…, Kemp Powers’ tough talking, in-your-face drama speculates on what might have happened in that room that night. Over music, whiskey and two tubs of vanilla ice cream, the men wrangle with the change that’s gonna come. What will emerge are four legends that would define an era.

Directed by Matthew Xia (director of 2018’s acclaimed production Shebeen), One Night in Miami… is a play about prejudice and brotherhood, and asks us: on which side of the fence do we stand when hard choices need to be made? Olivier Award-winning Matt Henry (Kinky Boots, The Voice UK finalist) stars as Sam Cooke.

We grabbed a chat with actor Christopher Colquohoun, who plays Malcolm X. Christopher spent time in Bristol from 2002-2004, playing Simon Kaminski in the BBC drama series Casualty.

So, Christopher, what is One Night in Miami… about?
The play is about the night that Cassius Clay (who would soon become Muhammad Ali) first became world champion heavyweight boxer by beating Sonny Liston. Instead of partying in Miami Beach after the fight, he went to a motel room with his friends Malcolm X, Sam Cooke and Jim Brown.

Kemp Powers’ ‘One Night in Miami’ imagines what happened on the night when Cassius Clay met up with friends and fellow black icons Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Malcolm X after the fight that made him world heavyweight champion

So the play is an imagined ‘happening’ of what went down inside that room, between those four iconic, towering, black figureheads at the height of the Civil Rights era.

Why should people come and see One Night in Miami…?
Because it’s a brilliantly entertaining, and insightful look at these four incredible men on this very special night in history. And the themes are incredibly relevant to current dialogues around #blacklivesmatter.

You play Malcolm X, a hugely significant figure in the story of race relations. What attracted you to this role and the show?
I’ve always wanted to play a few figures from history, and Malcolm X is one of them (Jimi Hendrix is another… but I’m probably too old for that one now). This is a great play so the choice was easy.

Christopher Colquhoun plays Malcolm X in ‘One Night in Miami’

And how have you been preparing for the role?
I mainly watched all of the footage I could find on a loop to get clues about his manner, voice, idiosyncrasies  etcetera. Then it was a case of reading the autobiography, watching documentaries and so on.
However, you can’t simply deliver an impersonation of Malcolm. He has to exist in this world: the world of the play, speaking these lines in this context. It’s a play, not a historical recreation, and we have to react to one another as actors at some point, and free ourselves from merely impersonating.

One Night in Miami… addresses some big issues, including those of race and power. Why do you think it’s important for these issues to be addressed on stage?
I love being entertained in the theatre, but if that’s all that’s happened I am left dissatisfied. It would be like having just dessert for dinner. Enjoyable in itself, but ultimately not that filling or satisfying or nourishing. I think this play nourishes as well as entertains.

Tell us your own story. Did you always want to act?
I grew up imagining I’d be an architect – or a physicist, as that was my favourite subject at school. But I was also interested in being in plays just for the fun of it. But at some point we moved to a new city and I lost interest in schooling/academia and grew more interested in making theatre.

You have worked on a lot of TV shows in the past, how does it differ from performing on stage?
Stage and TV are completely different worlds. They feel very far apart to me still. I am one of the lucky actors who has had opportunities to do a reasonable amount of both. TV is very quick and demands strong choices made outside of a sense of the whole thing. Sometimes you don’t have all the scripts, or they aren’t finished by the time you start shooting. It’s especially difficult in long-running shows, where you can be going happily along in one direction with your character and then you get a phone call from a producer saying they’re taking your character in a completely new direction – starting now! Yes, that has happened. Won’t say where!

Colquohoun (r) stars alongside Matt Henry (l) as Sam Cooke

But in theatre you have an arc of the whole story and you get time to work out how everything relates to everything else and try a few ways of doing things to see what’s best. Also the size and scale of the performance is a completely different and challenging thing. But both are fun … usually!

Finally, what’s next for you?
What’s next is currently up for grabs – but quite possibly season 3 of a TV show I’m in on Amazon called Absentia in which I play an FBI agent.

One Night in Miami… is at Bristol Old Vic from Tue, June 25 to Sat, June 29. For more info, visit bristololdvic.org.uk/whats-on/one-night-in-miami

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