Who’s Afraid of Mikey Garland? – Hope Street Theatre

Drawing upon his own experiences of homelessness from the age of five, Liverpool-based rapper Mikey Garland narrates the course of his life around his debut album of the same title in this production from ArtsGroupie CIC. The show carries a content warning relating to themes which may be triggering to some people, so audience discretion is advised.

Garland employs a simple set with minimal props to support the stages of his journey over the course of the last twenty-eight years and this works well given he is a visually engaging performer with numerous costume changes supporting the performance of each of the twelve songs.

The stage descends to darkness between songs with a voice over detailing the background experiences in Garland’s life at each point in time. Whilst this effectively accommodated the costume changes and perhaps, as was suggested to me, reflected the void in Garland’s life each time, these were particularly long and there is a risk, with their added inclusion of relevant but heavy statistical data highlighting the wider national implications, that this could turn off a less engaged audience.

Songs were performed live to a backing track which incorporated recorded backing vocals by Garland and whilst I appreciate any production is determined by costs, a live support band and vocalists would have taken what is already an important and powerful piece up a notch. I quite like the idea of a live narration with Garland breaking into song and although I accept this does make the costume changes more challenging, I think it would provide a stronger connection with the very human angle to Garland’s story.

The piece is well written and provides a very necessary socio-political commentary as it explores real lives – not just Garland’s – that are too often let down by a system allegedly designed to protect them but too often focused on and motivated by other purposes which Garland successfully highlights. There is an understandable underlying political tone to Garland’s work but I would prefer to see it less explicitly stated towards the end because Garland’s factual experiences of the harsh side of life, that most of us have thankfully avoided, are important and must be said: I wouldn’t want to give those who need to see and hear this the most an easy opportunity to dismiss it out of turn.

I can’t proclaim to be an expert on rap, although I was around when it first began to emerge in this country, but the twelve pieces resonated strongly with the course of events and were well performed and enjoyed by the audience. I do like albums that tell a story rather than just being a compilation of tracks and Garland’s achievement here is no mean feat in that regard. For what at heart covers the most difficult of topics, Garland’s clever use of humour keeps us engaged and shows that there is sometimes, no matter what, a lighter side to life.

So, what next? It’s a piece that deserves a wider audience and I feel that its important messages on a number of issues would wisely inform a younger generation about to embark on life. With Garland’s natural good looks and charm providing an obvious appeal to a youthful audience, could it be sanitised to tick some boxes to enable that to happen? Perhaps that is the next challenge…

ArtsGroupie is a Liverpool based community interest company that is promoting and providing access to the arts in the North West and beyond. https://www.artsgroupie.org/

Reviewer: Mark Davoren

Reviewed: 10th February 2023

North West End UK Rating: ★★★