It is not every day that Falmouth gets treated to an intimate pre-tour warm-up show from an out of town artist. Still, Wednesday night saw a small but knowingly privileged crowd gather in the new arts space above the town’s legendary Courtyard Deli to witness award-winning slam poetry champion and acclaimed freestyle MC Maxwell Golden as he presents his latest work.
The first surprise for me is that CountryBoy’s Struggle is more than a collection of poems and raps. Instead, we are presented with a one-man theatrical performance in which Golden uses just his voice, body and soundtrack to contort himself into a number of characters and scenarios the audience takes joy in imagining with him. Throughout the hour-long show we get a deft balance of physical and spoken comedy, touching pathos, hip-hop and beat-box via a narrative delivered so acutely that I’m again surprised – and maybe a little disappointed – that it isn’t Golden’s own life story.
On reflection though, I’m thankful. If that was the case, lazy comparisons to Eminem’s 8 Mile might surface here – we’ve got a ‘rag to riches’ story, we’ve got a scene with rapper’s stage-fright – but the similarities end there. Although Golden has taken influence from real-life (e.g. the cliff-top raves of north Cornwall and the impenetrable bustle of London), in each case it seems a starting point from which the story and rhymes can blossom, and a clever device to keep our disbelief continually suspended.
And so, Michael – not Maxwell – is our protagonist who yearns to rap among London’s big city lights after an increasingly stifling teen-hood surrounded by the same people, and the same hip-hop-less community, way out here in rural Cornwall. This is something anyone who has grown-up away from city life can relate to, especially when Michael describes his original struggle to make things happen with his naively optimistic rhyme: ‘I’ll work at the local club, put on a couple shows, then the word will get out and the shows will grow, it’ll be helluva good, helluva vibe and enough dough, then helluva night when Bambaataa calls me bro.’
One of the real strengths of CountryBoy’s Struggle, however, is that it manages to connect with those in the audience who might not be hip-hop fans nor be of the age to have taped tracks from the Radio 1 Top 40 before Mark Goodier speaks. For older audience members, they can no doubt recognise their own sons and daughters in the frustrated, wide-eyed and talented Michael. For youngsters, Golden is an energetic performer with a keen ability to mould himself into Michael’s frightening and imposing father one second, or his comical hunched-over bass-head flatmate the next. All these characters are believable and distinguishable from one another – a feat that is both refreshing and impressive.
At its heart, this is a family show and it is fair to say that those who want a particularly challenging or original story might not find that here. To its credit, CountryBoy’s Struggle paints a charmingly honest picture of what we need to sacrifice to achieve our goals – and how our goals are often pretty darn different when we get them in our sights. Yet, Golden’s real success is how he can seamlessly incorporate hip-hop – and its subtle variances – into a theatre context and make it appealing and enjoyable for those who may or may not be familiar with either.
Maxwell Golden takes CountryBoy’s Struggle on tour around the UK in October and November. For more information visit: http://www.facebook.com/maxwell.golden
You can still catch MAxwell on the remaining dates:
9th, 10th, 11th, 12th Nov – Contact Theatre, Manchester
14th Nov – Action Transport Theatre, Ellesmere Port
22nd Nov – The Albany, London
23rd Nov – The Core at Corby Cube, Corby
25th Nov – SpArC Theatre, Bishop’s Castle
