Friday 31st August saw a group of young people deliver ‘An Evening With Dido Elizabeth Belle’ at the Shoestring Theatre in Croydon.
The show was the end product of a boot camp they attended during their school holiday. The young cast sang, danced and acted out a school trip to Kenwood House where a young schoolgirl of mixed heritage, called Fern, came face to face with Dido Elizabeth Belle, first in the famous painting and then in the flesh as Dido came to life before her eyes.
The one-off performance drew a sell out crowd of seventy who gave the young cast a rousing reception at the end of the show. The youngsters (from age seven up to sixteen) had given up two weeks of their holiday to prepare for the show, receiving coaching in the performing arts (singing, dancing and acting). Their hard work really did pay dividends and will, hopefully, have done wonders for their self-confidence (performing in front of a live audience can be a daunting experience for people of any age).
The distinguished historian Michael Ohajuru appeared in the show as himself, explaining to the school party the significance of the painting and the context surrounding it.
After a short interval, Michael chaired a question and answer session with the audience that featured Evadne Bygrave (CEO of Sing-a-Book and the driving force behind the show) and David Gleave (of Historycal Roots and author of the book ‘Fern and Kate Meet Dido Elizabeth Belle’ on which the show was loosely [!] based). Asked why he felt Dido’s story was important, David said: ‘I was a white boy who went to a white school where I was taught white history. I learned about Florence Nightingale, for example, but not Mary Seacole. It was only much later that I realised there was a very different and much more diverse and interesting version of history that had been left untold.’ Dido, he went on to say, had come from the most disadvantaged background imaginable but had nevertheless overcome the obstacles that confronted her to leave her unique mark on the world, something we could all draw inspiration from.
The show could hardly have been better timed because, purely by chance, a couple of days later the painting of Dido was featured in an episode of ‘Fake or Fortune?’ on the BBC. The programme told Dido’s story and explored who might have painted the famous double portrait. For many years the painting was attributed to Zoffany but, after a fascinating investigation, the artist was identified as David Martin, a highly regarded Scottish portrait painter. A value of £600,000 was put on the painting but everyone agreed that its significance as a historical document far outweighed any monetary value.
We first became aware of Dido’s story about thirty years ago when a group of local historians in Camden asked themselves questions about the mysterious Black girl in the painting at Kenwood House. We have followed developments avidly ever since and it is so satisfying to know that her story is now much more widely known. Hopefully our young actors will be among those who now have a better understanding of the rich diversity of British history.