Yolanda Mercy Archives - North West End UK

31May

By Holly SewellNo Comments

London

Failure Project – Soho Theatre

Yolanda Mercy’s Failure Project is a sharp, cathartic and touching story of a woman who just can’t seem to catch a break - professionally, personally or creatively. It’s a sobering reflection of the theatre industry for emerging and mid-career writers, and the realities that face anyone trying to forge a career in the arts. The story follows a 33-year-old playwright, Ade, who is commissioned by a London theatre to write a script about her time on a scholarship at a posh private school. Over six months, her story is distorted beyond recognition by a production team that sidelines her as soon as the script is done. She is dismissed as an actor, interrupted and ignored. Still, the commission stands. To the outside world, Ade is a success. Mercy digs into failure in every facet of Ade’s...

Failure Project – Summerhall, Anatomy Lecture Theatre

A new play by BAFTA nominee Yolanda Mercy (Quarter Life Crisis), in which Mercy plays Ade Adeyami, a young British-Nigerian playwright and actor who is still riding the wave of her first play, which has become an unexpected Fringe hit. With this success, and the realisation that she might even be able to make a living from her dream, comes an unexpected problem - a hierarchy of editors, agents and publicists who are there to help, nay manipulate, her. Ade’s second play, Day Girl, about a working-class black kid at a private school, has been commissioned, and paid for, and Ade finds she must now dance to her new masters’ tune. Before she knows it a B-list, minor celebrity influencer with no acting experience is cast in the lead instead of Ade, worst still she want to be ‘collabora...

The Play Scratch Night – Online

I think it is fair to say the arts have been hit hard during the COVID19 pandemic with the closure of theatres, music venues and everything in between but what is quite beautiful, is that the amazingly passionate people of the art world have not stopped writing or creating new drama for the world to see. Liverpool has been lucky enough to still have its own arts festival running at this time. The LightNight festival has given hope to the people of Liverpool over the last while by showcasing everything from large-scale light projections and live music to workshops on spoken word, art, crafts and theatre. LightNight has also seen a string of events such as street performance, walking tours, dancing and late-opening exhibitions taking place right across the city centre. LightNight is pr...