Mass murder at sea: it’s British history
Photo of Giles Terera: Jemima Yong
Daniel Nelson
Have you heard the one about the woman who goes into a bookshop to report that a book about a slave trade mass murder is in the wrong place?
No, it shouldn’t be in the Africa history section, or any of the other book categories suggested by the staff.
It belongs under Britain.
So obvious, so powerful, so overlooked. The slaves were tossed into the sea from a British ship. It’s British history - as British as the Barbican Centre, where the play about the murders, The Meaning of Zong, is being staged. And the Centre, and our culture, cannot be separated from the profits and attitudes of slavery.
The play by British actor, musician and film-maker Giles Terera harnesses historical events to tell an epic tale about the ship; the murders; about Olaudah Equiano, the Benin-born writer, gentleman’s barber and abolitionist; about fellow abolitionist Granville Sharp; and about the trial that endorsed the classification of African captives as insurable cargo.
It’s lively, witty, dramatic, imaginative, and it occasionally invites audience feedback - always risky with stiff British audiences; confidently uses anachronism, and plays with contemporary tropes such as “where are you really from?” and who makes the best Joloff rice. The pace slows in the second half, which feels over-stretched, straining too hard for poetic drama.
But at a time of national disputes over a pub displaying hanging Golliwogs and whether or not the Metropolitan police are institutionally racist, whether statues of slavers who contributed to their local areas should stand or fall, and whether National Trust properties should make clear their historic debt to slavery, the play is a timely reminder of the need for recognition of the continuing cost of dehumanising a section of humanity.
The play is a particular triumph for Terera, who struggled for six years to get it on stage.
“For me, to see that the world we’re living in now is absolutely connected to the world of the play was extremely important,” he says in an interview with co-director Tom Morris. “Those times, the 1780s, were massively influential. Our financial system was defined then, the education system we’re living with, our class system; they were all built at this period or very much influenced by it.
“If you look at the last couple of years and the statue of Colston being pulled down, all that is rooted in the period we’re talking about.
“But we, as a society, don’t want to address this period; we don’t want to look at this particular period in our history. But we have to look at it. White people might not want to look at it because they feel they have lots to answer for. Black people might not want to look at it because it’s trauma from the past.”
This is a chance to look.
* The Meaning of Zong, from £26, is at the Barbican Centre, Silk Street EC2, until 23 April. Info: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2023/event/the-meaning-of-zong-giles-terera