David Jonsson has wonderfully expressive hands, his long fingers often outstretched to communicate. His enthusiasm when describing the dishes of food animatedly or his reflecting on his unexpected first journey in a limousine charm. There is humour too, he says, "I have a feeling she may die on my birthday," and gives us a wry look.
Its very title would have conjured up then, as it does now, the unnecessary death of a man in custody or at the hands of the police. Although in the play there is the death of Shakie (Nickcolia King-N'da)'s father, a jazz musician in Manchester, the title The Death of a Black Man may be a metaphor.
The first long speech is the schoolboys' perpetual source of humour: carboard ripping and toxic smelling flatulence. Banza, attributing this to his bean laden diet, recalls how his teacher led an investigation into the culprit. With small primary school boys and a good sense of the ridiculous, she held them aloft to nasally detect the waft of lingering aroma.