Paterson Joseph
(Photo by Robert Day)
It began as a quixotic project three years ago in local theatre. Now
the story of the man who was born on a slave ship and became the first
black Briton to vote has taken on new urgency, post the Windrush
scandal, as it opens at London’s Wilton’s Music Hall after a run in New
York.
Paterson Joseph, a Royal Shakespeare Company actor and a familiar face in the TV series Casualty and Peep Show, wrote Sancho: An Act of Remembrance
initially out of frustration, he says, at the lack of roles for black
actors in period dramas. It has developed into something with much wider
significance. And in the heat of the Windrush scandal, it’s become more
poignant than ever before.
The play tells the story of Charles Ignatius Sancho,
who was born on a slave ship bound for New Granada (modern-day
Colombia). His mother died at his birth and his father killed himself
shortly afterwards. For years, the young Sancho battled servitude and
the prejudice of 18th-century London. But he emerged to become a
prominent actor and musician, befriending along the way the artist
Thomas Gainsborough, who painted his portrait.
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