Broadway World: Paterson Joseph is Sensational in SANCHO [Based on Life of Composer Ignatius Sancho]

Paterson Joseph as Sancho

Photo Credit: Robert Day

Paterson Joseph as Sancho
Photo Credit: Robert Day

Paterson Joseph as Sancho
Photo Credit: Robert Day

Composer Ignatius Sancho is 

featured at AfriClassical.com

Broadway World

by Juan Michael Porter II 

May 4, 2018   

Paterson Joseph greets the audience with a mischievous smile and freely admits that he adapted Charles Ignatius Sancho's story into a one-man-showcase for his talents. If people refuse to cast you as the leading man in costume-dramas, go around them and write your own play. After painting himself with a few of the title character's traits - a subtle lisp, low-hanging paunch, and toothy grin - Joseph vanishes. As if by magic, Sancho appears and continues to narrate his own tale as he models for the era's leading portrait artist.

With a breezy patter, Sancho regales us with, and acts out, his incredible story. Born on a slave ship, he is orphaned after his mother dies and his father commits suicide. Because of his easy-going temperament, he is whisked away to serve as the plaything for three maiden sisters in Greenwich. Balking at the lack of intellectual stimulation - reading is forbidden to him - he runs away to serve as butler to Duchess Mary Montagu, who nurtures his inquisitive mind with an education of the highest order. Upon her death, he is left with a handsome annuity, which he gambles away.

At this point, Sancho selects a dancing partner from the audience and teaches her to waltz. Though he is a lisping, heavyset man, during this brief dance lesson it becomes clear why so many fell in love with Sancho. As portrayed by Joseph, he is the charming life of the party - magnetic, attentive, complimenting, and totally at ease - who never overplays his hand unto obsequiousness.

Jumping forward in time, Sancho speaks of his family life, his pleasure as a man of letters, and his new job as a grocery shop owner. But something is not right. Smoldering beneath his usual suave manner, is a twinge of agitation. It turns out that he will vote today, making him the first Briton of African descent to do so. As a Black man and former slave, this option is only available to Sancho because he is a financially independent male with property. But he cannot locate his papers which declare his status. Undeterred, Sancho shows up anyway. If he is challenged and found wanting, he will face imprisonment. The challenge comes, and the constabulary are summoned to cart him away for voting without proper papers. Just in time, his son arrives bearing the missing documentation. With tears in his eyes, exuding gratitude to the heavens, Sancho takes these papers, kisses them and declares his vote.

As a character piece, Sancho: An Act of Remembrance is an absolute triumph. The emotional work that Joseph and his co-director Simon Godwin have invested is exquisite. Sancho is an absolute dandy and quite mannered; all the same, every moment rings true without tipping over into saccharine coyness. In assuming the pose of a very model Briton, Sancho communicates that he is a gentleman regardless of race or rotund figure. Though strikingly handsome, Joseph's transformation is such that we completely embrace him as a delightfully effete wit suffering from gout, as opposed to the leading man that he is.