BY NDIDI JOHN 

 

It is 1919 and World War One is over. Troops have been demobbed, with high expectations but low prospects of finding gainful employment or even housing. The third wave of the pandemic, the Spanish Flu, continues to wreak havoc, with port towns suffering heavily.

 

Cardiff, and most particularly, Butetown, with a high number of seafaring immigrants, is the centre of racial unrest mirroring events which are taking place across the Atlantic during the Red Summer.

 

Against the backdrop, violent race riots close in on Butetown, as Bethan, a white nurse, wakes to her worst nightmare. Beaten by white thugs for her relationship with Raphael, a black activist, she finds herself trapped in a house on the wrong side of the riots and in the firing line of Rose, an enraged Jamaican-born boarding mistress.

 

Racial tension, violence, death and rejection suffocate them, but they are forced to set aside their differences and work as a united front in the heat of the Cardiff crucible.

 

Routes is a compelling stage play about the struggles which cross the divides: black and white people, inter-racial relationships, immigration, age-old bigotries and newly-held ideals. It's a play of its time, but just as relevant today.

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