Olivier Award-winning director Matthew Xia’s critically acclaimed Tambo & Bones, one of the most talked about cultural events of 2023, is coming to our Courtyard Theatre from 14-24 May 2025 as part of its UK premiere national tour.
An Actors Touring Company, Stratford East and Royal & Derngate co-production in association with Leeds Playhouse, Belgrade Theatre and Liverpool Everyman, Tambo & Bones was written by spoken word poet and playwright Dave Harris and is a blistering exploration of the intersection between race, capitalism and performance.
Directed by director, composer and DJ Matthew Xia (Artistic Director and Joint CEO of Actors Touring Company), whose original production was one of the most talked-about cultural events of 2023, the production is an exhilarating, darkly comic and provocative satire on capitalism and Black performance. It explores the commodification of the Black experience through the mediums of minstrelsy, hip-hop and afro-futurism. Spanning 500 years, performers Tambo and Bones journey from comedy double-act to hip-hop superstars to activists in a future America, contending with the alarming repercussions of a nation torn apart by race. Harris’ blistering play laughs through our past, blows the roof off our present and imagines an explosive future for our world and for theatre.
Director Matthew Xia said: “I’m so excited that Tambo & Bones – our genre-busting headline-grabbing production – is getting a second outing. It is a truly audacious satire, both ridiculous and profound, which combines my greatest passions, hip-hop and theatre, to interrogate perceptions of race in the past, present and future. There is truly no experience quite like it, I can’t wait to see how audiences in Northampton, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Coventry and London respond to this sucker punch of a play.”
The production will tour to Royal & Derngate Northampton (7 – 15 March 2025), Liverpool Playhouse (26 – 29 March 2025), HOME Manchester (1 – 5 April 2025), Belgrade Theatre (9 – 12 April 2025), Stratford East (29 April – 11 May 2025) and Leeds Playhouse (14 – 24 May 2025).
Completing the creative team are set and costume designers Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and ULTZ, with lighting design by Ciarán Cunningham, Hip-Hop Beats produced by Excalibah and Roly Botha, sound design and additional composition by Richard Hammarton, magic and illusion consultancy by Chris Cox and puppetry design by Hugh Purves.
Tambo & Bones is the latest in a series of acclaimed productions from ATC, one of the only British theatre companies dedicated to producing international plays and presenting them throughout the UK. ATC’s recently celebrated work includes The Architect (2023), Family Tree (2023) and Bodies of Water (2024).
