Just go and see it.
Wait… I need to write more than that? Ok… This play is one of the most important works of our time. You’ll laugh, you may cry, you will be forever changed by the experience. Just go and see it.
What’s that? You need even more? You got any quarters?
Tambo & Bones, written by Dave Harris and directed by Matthew Xia (formerly Radio 1 Xtra DJ Excalibah), is an audacious, brutal, thought-provoking look at the monetisation of Black culture and pain in the Western world, from minstrelsy to hip-hop. And yet, despite the weighty subject matter, it is frequently riotously funny.
I had the great pleasure of interviewing Matthew a few weeks ago (full interview here), and the night before we spoke, I read the play. From page one, I was hooked. Dave Harris is a Black American man, from West Philadelphia, and damn is he smart. Americans, especially Black Americans, are so aware of the history of their country – the legacy of slavery, systemic racism, and cultural survival through generations. It shapes how they move through the world, and it shapes the art they create.
The play opens on a beautifully fake pastoral set, exactly as described in the script: fake bushes, fake sun, fake trees. Tambo (Clifford Samuel), dressed in a minstrel suit, just wants to rest under his pretend tree. Then Bones (Daniel Ward) arrives, obsessed with making money – specifically, getting quarters from the audience. When Tambo realises that, due to Bones’ influence, he now cares about quarters too, it hits like a punch in the stomach. It’s capitalism infecting someone who never cared about it before, demonstrating capitalism’s insidious reach.
There are so many powerful emotional beats. When Tambo delivers his treatise on race in America, although I knew the content in advance, the way he performed it – comic yet devastatingly truthful – hit harder. “And they cried, and some of their tears sounded like music….And some … learned how to cry in a way that made the White … buy them a house“, highlighting the commodification of Black pain from slavery to hip-hop.
In Act Two, set firmly in the world of hip-hop capitalism, Tambo delivers an impassioned rap about wanting to change the world. When it ends, there’s a sound effect of roaring applause – yet our audience sat in silence. It was tragic. He’d poured his heart out, and they clapped. Not us – but the world, the system, the machine that claps without listening. And the thing is, the music? It’s phenomenal. Genuinely brilliant. It borrows from recognisable hip-hop tropes and samples but builds something so clever, so sharp, and so good it deserves its own album. I know plays don’t usually get cast recordings unless they’re musicals – but honestly, this one should. Incredible work by Roly Botha and Excalibah (aka director Matthew Xia).
Act Three shifts everything profoundly (no spoilers here – just brace yourself). The sound design was superb, immersive and shocking, and the multimedia elements (in Acts II and III) were incredible. The set was intentionally sparse, beautifully supportive without distracting from the power of the performances or ideas.
Between acts, anticipation filled the air. This play, from Act II onwards just constantly fills you with awe and emotion, keeping you on edge because anything could happen next.
Clifford Samuel brings depth and fragile hope to Tambo, whose desperation for change resonates profoundly. Daniel Ward’s Bones embodies raw ambition and fierce conflict, brilliantly capturing capitalism’s seductive grip. Their chemistry is golden – they feel like brothers, foils, mirrors, always supporting each other, like their characters.
At the interval, there was a collective buzz of excitement and confusion, as everyone tried to process what we’d just seen. The laughter was loud, the discussions intense. I felt deeply part of the audience yet hyper-aware of my whiteness, conscious of the different ways Black and other POC audience members responded at times – moments of recognition, knowing laughter, and powerful reflection.
I couldn’t make the press night due to a clash, and by pure luck I had picked the night that IRIE Mind, a local mental health charity supporting the African-Caribbean community in Hackney, were hosting a post-show Q&A. During the session, Clifford Samuel revealed the emotional toll of wearing a minstrel costume, briefly losing sight of himself when he first put it on and saw his reflection. It speaks volumes about the costumes’ profound effectiveness.
Set and Costume Designers, Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and ULTZ are both known for their challenging and ground-breaking work, and in Tambo & Bones they do not disappoint. From the ‘fake ass pastoral’ set (Harris’s stage directions are hilarious) and the minstrel costumes, to the stark statement of the final set and costumes, their work beautifully brings the visual side of Harris’s script from the page to the stage.
Director Matthew Xia, with his brilliant creative team, has done an incredible job bringing this intelligent, important, and at times absurd script vividly to life – I can’t imagine it being done any better.
It’s frustrating to see empty seats for a show this powerful – and there were quite a few when I was there. Perhaps the theatre seems a bit far away? It was 1hr 20 mins away for me, and I guarantee you it’s worth the trip. Your mind will be expanded, blown, and ultimately, happier for the experience.
Although I read the script first, for the interview, I urge you to go into this show blind – but do buy the script for £7 from the foyer after, I promise you the stage directions alone are worth it. Other than what I’ve told you here, don’t learn more about it. Don’t even look at the free info sheet they give out at the box office, until after the show. Just go in fresh and let it wash over you. From the first minute, you’ll be hooked.
Just go and see it.
Tambo & Bones is at Stratford East theatre until 10 May 2025.
Tickets: stratfordeast.com
The tour finishes at Leeds Playhouse from 14 – 24 May 2025.
Tickets: leedsplayhouse.org.uk
Photos by Jane Hobson
