Princess Essex
19 September 2024
Globe Theatre
4.0 out of 5.0 stars
Princess Essex is the sparkling new production of Anne Odeke’s version of the story of the first Black woman entering a beauty contest in the UK in 1908. Currently running at the Globe Theatre, it’s a brilliantly witty and exciting show that is sure to sweep audiences along with its larger-than-life main character Joanna.
In the true story, A young woman insists on entering the beauty pageant in Southend On Sea, calling herself Princess Dinubolu of Senegal, though research has not been able to confirm if any such person actually existed. Fraud and fake identities were rampant in the early 1900s, and the woman disappeared after the pageant, never to be seen again.
Anne Odeke has written her own version of who the woman might have been, and what could have inspired her to be a trailblazer, weaving a hilarious story of intrigue, deception, identity, societal pressures, and finding your own way in a world that isn’t built for you. She creates Joanna, a young servant who doesn’t quite fit in with her surroundings and wants to find her own way, challenging stereotypes and perceptions with the audacity of the young. She falls into a crisis of identity when she is taken to the famous Kursaal to see a heavily colonial show in which a “Pygmy” man called Batwa is exhibited as a curiosity, focussing on his wildness and otherness to entertain the higher classes who deem themselves as more evolved, better, more valuable. She sets her sight on freeing this exhibited wild man, but is taken aback when she finds out he is quite sophisticated and chooses to entertain Europeans in exchange for money and safety from the war in his homeland. She questions everything she knows about society and her view of herself as a Black Essex girl in a white culture that sees her as other.
When she meets Mr. Bacon, proprietor of the financially struggling Kursaal, they come up with a scheme to bring thousands of people to the upcoming beauty pageant, informing the King himself of the Senegalese princess in attendance. Unhinged hilarity ensues with a strong critical undertone. The way Odeke skilfully reclaims so many stereotypes, giving agency to Batwa and Princess Dinubolu in a way that is often missing from the narrative, gives a modern twist to a century old mystery, plunging Edwardian society into a fast-paced comedy that puts the power squarely into the hands of the typically oppressed figures in the play.
Harsh words and rousing music meld together to create a feast of entertainment and social commentary, creating stand-out characters across the board, including several very empowered women who use their voices beautifully. Filled with humour and delicious physical comedy, gorgeously Edwardian-but-make-it-quirkily-modern costumes, and even a raunchy orgy-anthem for King Edward himself, this new play goes beyond the usual constraints of period theatre and brings equal measures of charismatic entertainment and critical social commentary, asking the big questions of what identity and representation really mean. Joanna’s mile-a-minute chatter and the slew of interesting characters deeply engage the audience. In fact, I have never heard as loud and uproarious an ovation at the Globe. Essex Princess should absolutely be on the top of your list for this year’s theatre plans!
