Eclipse Theatre’s new offering My White Best Friend- North opens in Leeds

The company’s latest project, My White Best Friend – North, is a collaboration with the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse Theatres and the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester and it opens in the first of three Leeds venues tonight.

The production evolved out of a ground-breaking work by Rachel De-Lehay – My White Best Friend (and other letters left unsaid) – which was first performed, to great critical acclaim, at the Royal Court and The Bunker in London.

It took the form of a series of letters addressing issues and emotions around race that the writer of the letter had previously felt unable to articulate to the recipient. Uncomfortable truths were confronted in a powerful, provocative and unashamedly political piece of theatre. 

Now Eclipse have commissioned seven West Yorkshire-based Black and ethnically diverse writers – Marcia Layne, Jamal Gerald, Malika Booker, Nick Ahad, Khadijah Ibrahiim, Chanje Kunda and Naomi Sumner Chan – to pen their own personal letters to be read out live on stage. As in the original, the actors will be reading the letters for the very first time on the night in front of a live audience.

“We were approached by the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse Theatres who were already working in partnership with the Royal Exchange in Manchester. They asked if we would like to be the third collaborative partner,” says Eclipse Theatre’s interim chief executive Kenneth Olumuyiwa Tharp. “We didn’t take long to think about it. There was no question that it was a really exciting idea. Also, having recently moved into Mabgate Mills in Leeds, we were looking at ways of connecting with local communities and with organisations and venues in the area. We are so happy to be bringing work to live audiences again. There is something very particular about experiencing something as intense as this in the same space as other people.”

The production will be staged at Slung Low’s base The Holbeck, the Riley Theatre at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Chapeltown and at the arts and community centre Left Bank in Burley Park. “This piece is so timely,” says Tharp. “It relates to the Black Lives Matter movement and those conversations around identity, race and belonging. They are complex issues and very much in people’s minds at the moment. It is interesting territory.”

The new letters will be performed alongside De-Lahay’s own. “It gives the writers the chance to share something quite personal – these are very human stories,” says Tharp. “I think they have relished the opportunity to get stuff that has been left unsaid out into the world. After each performance there will be a post-show discussion. This production is a safe space and it is a chance for everyone to learn something.”

At The Holbeck tonight, The Riley Theatre on November 2 and Left Bank on November 9. Details eclipsetheatre.org.uk