Tayọ Aluko, bringing African stories to life
Tayọ Aluko is a Nigerian-born writer, singer, actor, and producer based in Liverpool.
Coleridge-Taylor of Freetown – A concert in a play, written and performed by Tayọ, tells the story of George Coleridge-Taylor, a retired Sierra Leonean diplomat, caught up in the civil war in Sierra Leone in 1999. George finds solace in the music of his famous uncle, the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, against a backdrop of violence and trauma. Here, Tayọ tells us about the play, which he will perform at Hawksworth Village Hall, Leeds, on April 3, and his own remarkable story…
Where did the idea for Coleridge-Taylor of Freetown – A concert in a play, come from? Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a black-British composer who died in 1912 at the age of 37. His father had returned to Freetown (Sierra Leone) in 1875 unaware that his white girlfriend in London was pregnant. So father and son never met. Samuel grew up to become one of England’s most accomplished classical composers. I’ve always been fascinated by him, being a black man myself, but felt I couldn’t tell his story in his character because he was of dual heritage and died when he was half the age I am now. So I looked for a character that I could tell his story through and I happened on his father’s grandson, George, in Freetown. George studied philosophy both in Freetown and at Durham University and ended up becoming a diplomat for the Sierra Leone government.
Your play touches on some dark themes, including gender violence. What can you tell us about it? It’s set during the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s. George imagines himself touring the world singing his uncle’s songs, while in reality he is holed up inside his room in the staff quarters of the college where he works. He tries to remove himself from the trauma of what is happening around him by transforming himself in his mind into a concert performer far away. He welcomes the audience to this concert, drops in a little bit of history and then sings the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor songs.
Why did you want to tell this particular story? I’m fascinated by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s life and I love his music and with my plays I try to examine and share world history from an African point of view.
What are the underlying themes that you explore in work? I explore world history but particularly the history of people resisting the domination of Europeans, but also as with this last play the domination, corruption and brutality of African governments.
Can you tell us a little bit about your own story? I was conscripted into my school choir by my mother when I was in primary school in Lagos at the age of six and I haven’t stopped singing since. I’ve always sung and been acting on stage. I moved to the UK in 1978 at the age of 16. I went to a boarding school down south and then to university before moving to Liverpool in 1989. For 15 years I worked mostly as a self-employed architect and developer in Liverpool, but eventually I gave this up to do something I loved. Whilst working as an architect I happened on the story of Paul Robeson and I ended up writing and performing a play about him. I enjoyed it and I realised there’s something special about telling stories in the unique way I tell them, talking about history and using my singing voice.
What makes Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s music special? It’s so beautiful and melodic. There’s something very sweet and highly accomplished about his music. His most famous piece came just after he finished studying at the Royal College of Music, and the fact that he came out with all this music and died at the tender age of 37, I just think is quite remarkable. After his death in 1912, his music remained popular and right up to the outbreak of the Second World War there was an annual pilgrimage to the Royal Albert Hall for Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s epic composition, Scenes from the Song of Hiawatha. People went dressed in Native American costume to watch this pageant which included a big choir, a big orchestra and a set made up of Native American scenes, and people singing this huge cantata. But after the war his music died away and it’s only in the last 15 years or so that his music has become popular again.
What do you hope audiences take away from watching your play? I hope people learn some of the history that I share in the play about trans-Atlantic slavery and its abolition and enjoy, even in all this context, some absolutely beautiful music and singing.
Why is it important that stories like this are told? We have politicians on both sides of the Atlantic, and even in Africa, where you think ‘we should be able to do better than this.’ The reasons these people get into power is the ability for the elite to tell us stories about our history that are false. If we can find ways of telling our stories in a palatable way through drama, that is one of the weapons that we, as artists and consumers of the arts, have to counter this deception. Storytelling is basically a defence. Paul Robeson, my hero, said: ‘I use my art as my weapon in defence of my people and all oppressed people of the world.’ And I feel he’s passed this baton on to me.
Main image credit: Kristy Garland