Inua Ellams’ ‘Search Party’ at The Old Coal Yard

The Old Coal Yard played host to the British Nigerian-born poet, playwright, performer, designer, curator, Inua Ellams, as part of Newcastle Fringe Festival. Born to a Muslim father and a Christian mother, he moved to England with his family when he was 12 years old and later attended school in Dublin. His formative years have left a deep impression on him. From the forbidden jazz music his father enjoyed to the laddish repartee of his school mates, there are deep wells of emotion to be mined. Ellams’ initial motivation to write came in response to the suicide of a school friend. He needed an outlet for all the things left unsaid and teachers at school had already recognised his gift as a wordsmith and continued to encourage him.

Back in London, with time on his hands whilst waiting for the Home Office to process his immigration status, he virtually lived in the local library, devouring books and knowledge, teaching himself graphic design amongst other things. He remains a polymath, drawn to an extraordinarily wide range of projects, including composing a series of poetry postcards for an American hotel to place on the pillows in guest rooms, and being commissioned to write a recent episode of ‘Dr Who’.

The format for ‘Search Party’ is simple and relies on a good deal of openness and trust between Ellams and his audience. Basically, he arrives wearing one of his many ‘Zanna Buckar’ designs (a Nigerian hat named after a famous politician), and with his trusty tablet, the repository for all his writing – finished and unfinished, poems, plays, essays, half-formed ideas, musings. Often, he can’t even remember the extent of his output. He invites the audience to suggest words which he puts into the search function of his gadget, hoping to turn up something interesting. The Newcastle audience got off to a dodgy start with ‘hodge-podge’ which didn’t result in anything but Ellams has a Plan B for such a scenario and asks the audience to suggest a synonym. In this case it was ‘random’. Later in a similar hiatus, ‘dodge’ became ‘deflect’.

The suggested words (or synonyms) led to several essays and poems, including one rather good half-finished effort. There was a long prose reflection about his relationship with classical music (and Beethoven in particular), a rather sweet reflection on the end of a romantic relationship and an account of being on the receiving end of racism during a night out in London. It’s an interesting exercise which doesn’t quite come off but one has to admire his gumption. He further opens himself up to the audience with a Q&A. Here we learn why and how he writes. However, he is tantalisingly secretive about what he’s currently working on which means I have signed up for his website updates. I suggest you do the same.

Julie Ward saw ‘Search Party’ at the Old Coal Yard as part of Newcastle Fringe.