How does a teenage tearaway on the streets of west London suddenly find himself at the vanguard of a black performance movement gracing the UK stage scene for more than four decades?

As a Performer Jeffery Kissoon is one of the outstanding actors of his generation, whose work especially with Shakespearean texts, challenges convention and blazes a trail that many young actors of colour unwittingly tread today. Kissoon came to Britain from Trinidad as a 13-year old as part of the migration of thousands of hopeful West Indians to these shores and has since gone on to become arguably one of the UK’s foremost classical actors, performing with and alongside top actors and directors, including Kenneth Branagh, Nicholas Hytner, Trevor Nunn, Bill Alexander, Nancy Meckler, Janet Suzman and most notably, the great innovative director, Peter Brook. As a director Jeffery has brought his boundless creativity and invention to new work, including classical adaptations that encompass his all black Hamlet for Black Theatre live in 2016.

This unique, workshop-inspired event will explore key moments during Kissoon’s past, growing up in a socially polarised London, his humble beginnings in theatre and his extraordinary achievements on the stage and screen. Proceedings will be chaired by Mark Norfolk, a long-time collaborator of Jeffery Kissoon in film and theatre, alongside academic, Dr David Linton, Senior Lecturer in Drama at Kingston University, London where his work covers issues of resistance, adaptation and exchange in theatre, focusing on participatory arts practice, black British performance and pre-modern popular theatre forms and their contemporary applications.