54.60 Africa at Arcola Theatre Review
Denis Mugagga, Usifu Jalloh, Christopher Mbaki, Ayo-Dele Edwards, Daniel Sewagudde. Photo by Alex Brenner.
Written by Danai for Theatre & Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review
54.60 Africa at Arcola Theatre is a show that wants to say a lot. There’s no doubting the ambition here. A week-long journey through all 54 African countries, delivered by an ensemble cast of eleven with live music, spoken word, dance and mythic storytelling—it’s bold, chaotic, and at times, genuinely joyous. 54.60 Africa moves like a fever dream, and sometimes it’s as exhausting as it is exhilarating.
The stage hums with colour and rhythm. Suzette Llewellyn’s Mama Africa presides over the space with gravity and warmth, while The Ganda Boys’ live score provides the kind of pulse that can make you forget you're in a theatre altogether. Individual performances pop—Munashe Chirisa brings much-needed humour, and Liana Cottrill’s physicality is a quiet revelation—but the show rarely settles long enough to let us sit with a single emotion or idea.
It wants to do everything, say everything, and represent everyone. That’s both its greatest strength and its biggest problem. Scenes zip from comedy to trauma to political critique, often within the same breath. The effect is dizzying—and not always in a good way. There are flashes of poignancy, but they arrive too fleetingly to leave a mark. A moving moment about forced displacement, for instance, is gone before we’ve had time to feel it.
Still, there’s real heart here. The production is most powerful when it leans into simplicity: a voice in stillness, a quiet dance, a lullaby. It’s in these moments that the show gestures at what it could be, if it trusted us to follow without needing to fill every silence.
Ultimately, 54.60 Africa is a celebration of resistance, culture, diaspora and memory. It’s loud, proud, and undeniably vibrant. But for all its colour and conviction, it left me craving depth over breadth. A bright mosaic, but one where the grout hasn't quite set.
54.60 plays at Arcola Theatre until 12 July
★★★
