Description
By Danny Bailey
Driven by the basslines of lovers rock, reggae, dub, sound-system culture, dance, and ritual, the play follows Paulette, a Jamaican woman in Brixton living under the shadow of the barrel child and the revolutionary legacy of Jamaica’s Blue Mountains.
By 2011, Paulette barely recognises herself. But when the police killing of Mark Duggan ignites the Tottenham Uprising, the unrest tears open a portal between past and present. Pulled through memory, hallucination, and ancestral invocation, Paulette is thrust into a living history of revolt – journeying through the 1981 Brixton Uprisings, Jamaica’s traditions of resistance, and the revolutionary spirits that refuse to stay buried.
As the streets erupt once more, Paulette’s living room becomes a battleground where personal awakening and collective struggle collide. Blending Kumina, sound-system culture, and the vibration of rebellion, Pressure traces a path from Nanny Town to Brixton, asking whether riot is the language of the oppressed, what it means to inherit a legacy of resistance, and whether every revolution begins at home.
Pressure is the first collaboration between Nuu Theatre and Danny Bailey as well as being the first production commissioned by Nuu Theatre Artistic Director, Sam Turton.