“Amazing”, “thought-provoking”, “breathtaking” and “powerful” – just some of the words used by audiences at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival to describe Sold. Take a look at their responses, then book your tickets to see the show which runs in the opening week of VAULT Festival.
Amantha Edmead‘s play, which tells the forgotten story of Mary Prince, a woman born into slavery in the British West Indies, runs at VAULT Festival from 28 January to 2 February 2020.
Mary Prince was born into slavery in the British West Indies and worked tirelessly there before being taken in her last years to the UK. Her story, originally published by the anti-slavery movement of the 1800s, was popular in its day, contributing enormously to the ending of slavery, but has long been forgotten and is rarely referenced or known.
Sold uses her words and experiences to explore the harsh realities of enslavement, travelling from her childhood days as a passive survivor to later in her life when she was trying to gain her freedom and change the system that kept her enslaved.
Edmead’s production tells Mary’s story using a blend of storytelling, song, dance and drumming, alongside the West African tradition of the griot, a important role in the African community that straddles being a historian, storyteller, singer, poet and musician. Edmead is joined in the ensemble by drummer and performer Angie Amra Anderson, one of the UK’s top African arts practitioners. Sold is directed by Euton Daley, who ran Pegasus Theatre for more than 20 years and received an MBE in 2008 for his services to the Arts and Young People.
What did Edinburgh audience think of Sold
