A bit of a thought out of nowhere: Not only are
Professor X and Magneto on a London
stage at the moment, there's also plays set in the motel rooms of both the civil
rights figures who inspired those characters. This time last week it was
Martin Luther King, now
One Night in Miami... is spent in Malcolm X's room - again
with some surprising company. Kemp Powers' play is another fictionalised version of
a night that really happened: Four famous men who were also old friends, meeting on
the night in 1964 that Muhammad Ali first won the heavyweight title. At the time Ali
was still called Cassius Clay (Sope Dirisu,) but Malcolm X (Francois Battiste) had
convinced him to join the Nation of Islam, and Clay was on the verge of going public
with his support and change of name. Also there are the American football star Jim
Brown (David Ajala) and singer-songwriter Sam Cooke (Arinzé Kene,) at the time best
known for soppy but successful love songs.
