"Family Tree" by Mojisola Adebayo

Nottingham Playhouse

Actors Touring Company and Belgrade Theatre Coventry, in association with Brixton House Theatre.

I will readily admit that I knew nothing about this play or the legacy of the characters, so this theatre trip was one of those rare educational jaunts, as well as being very entertaining.

Brutally honest, really funny, and ultimately transformative, this award-winning play is both a remembrance and a celebration of the life of an extraordinary women.

Henrietta Lacks seriously enhanced the history, as well as the future of medicine the world over. Her cells form the basis of the most important medical research and breakthroughs happening today, from cancer to HIV to COVID.

But Henrietta never knew any of this. Her cells were taken without her or her family’s knowledge or permission.

Henrietta was a black woman: she is not the only one whose body has been exploited by the medical establishment.

Why did I, and millions of people all over the world, not know any of this story? Because she was denied her place in history, but now is the time for Henrietta’s incredible legacy to undergo a transformation … to blossom and grow into something new and wonderful.

This brand-new nationwide touring production is by playwright Mojisola Adebayo and director Matthew Xia with a cast that includes Michelle Asante as Henrietta.

Asante is a wonderful story teller, if only my history teacher was as captivating as Michelle, I may have enjoyed the lessons more. She tells with great passion, as well as humour, Henrietta's story. Her description of seeing her own daughter on the operating table was graphic and quite disturbing. no parent wants to see their child in pain, but when the medical procedure back then to try and understand epilepsy was like something from a gothic novel, you can understand Henrietta's pain.

Four women and one male make up the cast with the only male being the physical image of cancer, skulking around the back of the set, smoking, silent. At one stage you see him carrying off a victim of this evil disease over his shoulder.

Set and Costume Design is by Simon Kenny. For Henrietta a smart two-piece suit; for the other women, a variety of costumes, dependant on the character being played. For the "smoking man", a cowboy suit and stetson.

The set design was set out like a stone garden, almost like a graveyard but with one large tree, depicted as a large stem cell type construction, again bringing the tree and the reminder of the various diseases that have benefitted from the research.

Much of the comedy comes from the absurdity of the given facts, and at times you feel a bit guilty at laughing at these facts, mainly from a political source, which makes it easier to laugh at.

There are some parts of the script regarding how members of the black, people of colour, however you wish to describe people of a non-white skin, were treated, especially through Covid, by patients and others. It was sickening to hear the racism aimed at these people. People who were there to help, and given the legacy upheld in this play, hypocritical of the verbal abusers.

If this play set out to make you feel just a bit guilty, and also to educate, then it succeeded in my eyes. It's the kind of message that should be taught in schools to teach children about medical history, what people sacrificed for today's generation, and to make them realise just how lucky we all are today.