In a strict Mormon household somewhere in the seam between East London and Essex, a girl is given Dizzee Rascal’s ground-breaking grime album Boy in da Corner by her best friend SS Vyper.

Precisely 57 minutes and 21 seconds later, her life begins to change – from feeling muted by dyslexia to spitting the power of her words; from being conflicted about her sexuality to finding the freedom to explore; from feeling alone to being given the greatest gift by her closest friend.

Step into a technicolour world where music, dance and spoken word collide and experience this semi-autobiographical story about how grime allowed Debris Stevenson to redefine herself.

As someone who is only marginally familiar with the works of Dizzee Rascal, I was tentative about how much enjoyment I would get from Debris Stevenson’s Poet In Da Corner. A homage to Rascal’s album Boy In Da Corner, Debris puts a semi-autobiographical spin on the album, adding her own bars and intertwining it all with her own narrative. Once the lights on the stage go up and the performers hit the stage with a blast of frenetic energy, I realise that I needn’t have worried. 

At its very heart, this is a coming-of-age story about a young girl’s struggle to break free from the rigours of a strict Mormon upbringing. Through the genre of grime Stevenson found her voice and found a way to battle other issues such as dyslexia, bullying, sexuality and race, all thanks to grime artists like Dizzee Rascal via an older boy called SS Vyper (played by MC Jammz).

Unlike anything I’ve ever seen, this Royal Court production uses dance, lyricism and movement to tell Stevenson’s story with a raw passion that is often missing on the stage.  With simultaneously stripped back, yet inventive staging by designer Jacob Hughes, we see pops of yellow contrasting with the black backdrop, as well as a revolving centre piece of the stage which is used to create all sorts of scenarios. 

With some welcome humour from Stevenson herself, as well as Stacy Abalogun and Kirubel Belay this is an enthralling, charming and challenging show that I’ll definitely be thinking about for a long time.

Poet In Da Corner runs at Belfast’s The MAC Theatre until 28th February, for more information or to book tickets click here.

 

Laura Caldwell

Author: Laura Caldwell

Hi, I'm Laura. I'm 30 years old and have a degree in Journalism with Photo-Imaging at the University of Ulster. I have an undying love for Belfast and all that it has to offer, an undying love for sleeping, Tegan and Sara, trashy tv shows, foreign snack-foods and being irresponsible with money. I also quite like origami, reading, jazz, hip-hop, dubstep, anything acoustic and Food Network TV. I've written for The Big List, Culture NI, Chatterbox and The Echo, as well as writing for BBC Across the Line.