Takeaway

Nathan Powell

Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse production

Liverpool Everyman

April 26-May 17, 2025; 2hrs 10mins

Phina Oruche, Wayne Rollins, Adi Alfa, Bill Caple and Bene Sebuyange in Takeaway. All pics: Sharron Wallace

I first encountered Nathan Powell, the Everyman/Playhouse's new creative director (see here) in March, in a pre-show talk entitled Art as Activism, here in Liverpool at the Playhouse. As the two theatres' new creative chief, Powell had brought some cleverly and provocatively-reimagined minstrelsy to the Playhouse with the show Tambo and Bones. The talk then centred on black and minority experiences and voices, on creativity and power, on racism and on activism.

What a joy then to see some of these themes unpicked in a very different (and very Scouse) way in Powell’s new play, Takeaway, directed by Amanda Huxtable.

The Hylton family’s Caribbean takeaway in Toxteth, Liverpool 8, built by Carol and her late husband, has been a bustling hub for the community and a place to get delicious Caribbean food. But times are changing, takeaway food is changing, and Liverpool in changing. Developers want to take over, build on the community football fields, and partner with Hyltons. Carol won’t hear of it, but her elder daughter Shelly thinks it’s the future and younger daughter Browning struggles to hold the two together. Meanwhile, Shelly’s white boyfriend - housing officer Richard - is driven to join increasingly militant protests against the development - much to Shelly’s disgust, since against her family’s wishes she is trying to forge a partnership with the developers and join the local gentrification process everyone else vehemently resists.

It’s a Scouse story, with references to Upper Parly Street and the Caribbean Centre that remains there. The story isn’t directly mapped to current events but is indirectly relevant, since there is gentrification going on in the L8 area, which remains a hub for Liverpool's black community. The racism and counter-protests of last summer are still very much in the city's, if not the country's consciousness.

Takeaway tells us that Liverpool is better than the racism that rises up, that "things were never like that round here". It’s a contentious point and plenty will disagree, but it’s a hope, a dream that needs to stay alive, and a narrative that’s not without its benefits.

It’s a serious story, joyfully told, with radio DJs, music, dancing, singing, even twerking, and playful references to race as well as to sex, food, family, friends and love. It’s a story with all the vitality of life, punctuating the tensions that the family experience between themselves and with the outside world.

Takeaway plays on the Caribbean character, particularly with the ingenious, if complex, code-switching of Carol, expertly played by Phina Oruche, and the old-school Jamaican charm of Chef, Wayne Rollins.

But it asks that we question the stereotypes. It asks the human questions of all of us - what time and what place do we belong to? Is it where we’ve come from, or where we’ve arrived? Who supports or opposes change, for good and for bad? How, why, and with what potential consequences? How are people really kept in their "place", for better or for worse? How can we function together as community and still move forward? And what does it really mean to be ‘family’?

There’s a lot to take away.

More info and tickets here