Play Mas

Mustapha Matura was born in Trinidad and came to England in 1961. He co-founded the Black Theatre Co-operative with the director Charlie Hanson in 1978 under which he wrote the highly successful No Problem! His plays include: Rum an' Coca Cola (Royal Court Theatre and off-Broadway, 1976); Another Tuesday and More, More (the Factory, London, 1978); A Dying Business (Riverside Studios, 1980); One Rule (Riverside Studios, 1981); The Playboy of the West Indies (Oxford Playhouse, 1984, and produced for BBC television, 1985); Trinidad Sisters (Tricycle Theatre, 1988) and The Coup (Royal National Theatre, 1991). In 1991, Mustapha received the Trinidad and Tobago Government Scarlet Ibis Award for achievement.

Mustapha Matura's sharp-edged satire. . . . Matura's play not only offers a potted guide to Trinidadian ethnicity, economics and politics, but also a potent metaphor for the post-colonial process. It is also very funny. . . . the real power of Matura's play lies in its reminder, under all that surface exuberance, that the movement towards independence carried its own element of fancy-dress masquerade.