REVIEW: Just Aretha - Little Liverpool Theatre Festival

The Little Liverpool Theatre Festival returned to the city for a second year following the successful inaugural staging in September 2020. The festival is the sister event of the award-winning Liverpool Theatre Festival which was born as a response to the pandemic and the demand for live entertainment.

The festival ran over 6 days and showcased new writing, whilst celebrating new talent from across the North West. The location was St Luke's Bombed out church.  I had the privilege of attending five performances over the weekend and the final show was the powerful 'Just Aretha'.

The disability arts drama was written and directed by Victoria Evaristo and is played by Aretha Nortey. It is a compelling story of Aretha, a black disabled woman who shares her lived experience of being a woman of Nigerian Ghanaian heritage living in Britain. Her mission is to dispel the myths around what it means to be a disabled woman of colour in the UK. It is her intention to quell the stereotypes which suggest that she twerks, needs to be followed around in shops, eats chicken with every meal and is an angry black woman who starts every sentence by kissing her teeth. 

She appears on stage to the sounds of camera clicks and she proceeds to pose and speak her truth. She is not brave, fragile and in need of protection. She is not a freak. She's just Aretha. She wants to empower people with disabilities and she wants the world to embrace them without judgement and bias.

Aretha was born in July 1987 after a traumatic labour ; overdue and weighing nine and a half pounds. She has a withered arm with permanently flexed fingers due to having ERBS palsy, a form of brachial flexus palsy. She therefore has one arm shorter than the other, her right arm has no feeling and she has had to learn how to master performing many tasks such as putting her hair in a pony tail with her dominant left hand. We, the audience hear a drum-roll and Aretha proficiently shows off her pony tail making skills. She jests that it is a lengthy process, therefore we may wish to get a cup of tea as she embarks on the strategical endeavour.

Aretha gives us an insight into her daily routine, from catching the bus (Dial a ride) to having to bare all to the countless number of carers who bathe and care for her. She has different carers on rotation, not knowing who to expect and whether they will be kind or gentle. The way that Aretha shares this with us the audience is so powerful and sobering. It is so easy to take for granted things that able-bodied people do for self-care without having to be expose their bodies and dignity to others. 

She shares a glimpse of what it's like to maintain her protective hairstyle of braids as she invites us to watch her trip to the salon where we meet her attentive stylist of more than five years as a video is played of a recent salon trip. There is plenty of humour entwined in the performance. It is tasteful humour and does not minimise the reality of Aretha's experience. She speaks of her Ghanaian mother recites an annual birthday prayer "Father, God, thank you for another year of Aretha's life". She desperately wants God to send Aretha a husband as she is ready to carry her grandchild. We hear of her "Auntie" who says that though she is beautiful but "if only she had two hands". 

There was a wonderful level of audience participation and we were encouraged to sing a Ghanaian song "Ghan Fwor Ooh Woh Ho Annah" which translates as "My Ghanaian people, where are you?" Aretha celebrates the audience and succinctly concludes "No matter how we dance, we are family, we are one". It is a poignant reminder that no matter who we are are and what our bodies look like, we are a human race worthy of connection, we are indeed one.

The performance was eloquent, raw, endearing and witty. We were invited into Aretha's world, a place where there was no judgement and shame. It was tender and honest. A beautifully powerful hour of consciousness and candid story-telling which was based on true life events. We were challenged to question our own levels of unconscious bias, to delve into our hearts and occupy a space of compassion and awareness. 

This show was an appropriate end to a weekend of shows for me and I highly commend and recommend Victoria Evaristo and Aretha Northey. Congratulations to LTF Festival Director Bill Elms on such a diverse festival which was highly entertaining and insightful at the same time.