Would the real Wife of Bafa please speak up!

It wasn’t difficult to release her from the page. Chaucer’s did that six hundred years before. The challenge was to inhabit the character’s voice. How would I get a live audience to believe that the diminutive well-spoken woman on stage was in fact a larger-than-lit woman of the world? I performed it to a couple of friends. One was frank: ‘Your Nigerian accent is shit’. I decided to focus on a few key words e.g. ‘nes’ rather than ‘next’ and to punctuate the punch lines. It was more about attitude than accent.

Two performance experiences: one, at the Africa Centre to a tiny audience including my dad. The poem was new. I was totally intimidated by the presence of family plus Nigerian Nigerians who didn’t appreciate my textual intervention or the humour. In contrast at the ICA, the younger, predominantly British Nigerian crowd screamed with recognition. They weren’t laughing at her; they were laughing with her. The ultimate test would be to perform it to a younger Nigerian Nigerian crowd. In Nigeria.

But for the time being, we’re back on the London-Canterbury route. The recording you’re about to hear isn’t live from the Canterbury Festival; it’s live from my through-lounge. No introductions, no background coughs or guffaws. No applause. This is a rehearsal, the closest you’ll get to the voice in my head. If you listen closely, you might even hear the splashing of the Thames.