BiBi Crew
BiBi Crew, founded in 1991, was the first British comedy troupe to consist entirely of Black actresses.[1][2] Their work focuses on the Black British experience.
History
[edit | edit source]In 1991, Joanne Campbell, Judith Jacob, Janet Kay, Suzette Llewellyn, Josephine Melville, Beverley Michaels and Suzanne Packer founded BiBi Crew in London.[1] According to Jacob and Michaels, the group was founded in response to The Posse, a comedy group made up of Black actors.[3][4] Michaels saw the troupe perform and thought "there should be a group of women doing this" and contacted the other women involved.[3] Campbell has stated that the group formed after a memorial benefit at the Theatre Royal Stratford East to celebrate the life of actor Calvin Simpson, in which a few of the troupe members participated.[5]
The troupe's name combines the word for lady in Swahili and Urdu, with the use of the word crew, which was popular with American music groups,[3] and which the group thought gave them some "street cred".[5] They were all of "Caribbean descent",[6] and "devised and produced work with an African Caribbean perspective" that drew on their personal experiences.[1]:74 They wrote, directed, produced and acted in their productions, which combined music, dance, drama and sketch comedy[1]:44 They were regular performers at the Theatre Royal Stratford East and contributed to the theatre's mission to reflect the diversity of Newham where it was located.[2]:305 They also toured throughout the United Kingdom and United States.[7]:20
Reunion
[edit | edit source]BiBi Crew reunited in 2005 without Campbell, who died in 2002, and Kay, who was pursuing a career in music.[8]
Legacy
[edit | edit source]They contributed to the emergence of a black comedy circuit in Britain in the 1990s.[9][10] Along with groups such as The Posse, they "introduced a new energized performance style into diasporic theatre in the early 1990s that was breaking away from old categories and attracting a black audience with sketch-like material, often highly political, rooted in common experience"[11]:195 Additionally, their performances at the Theatre Royal Stratford East helped to inspire the subsequent Asian revue series.[7]:20
Productions
[edit | edit source]- On A Level (1992), Theatre Royal Stratford East[12][13]
- But Stop! We Got Work To Do (1995), Bloomsbury Theatre[14]
- Shut Down (2017), Hackney Picturehouse
- Get Raunchy (2018), Bernie Grant Arts Centre
See also
[edit | edit source]References
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- ^ a b c Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
- ^ "Judith Jacob (The Raunchy Interview)", Ebony Online, 2017-10-12.
- ^ a b "The BiBi Crew". The Late Show, BBC2, 1992.
- ^ "Suzanne Packer talks about her time in comedy group The Bibi Crew". The Sian Williams Interview, BBC One, 2014-04-23.
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