Dark Arrival: Edric Connor, Errol John, Errol Hill burst onto UK arts scene

Ray Funk

Very early in their careers, three of the most important theatre and film professionals from Trinidad performed together for the first and apparently only time.

They were all based in London in those days, and were asked to travel west, to the port city of Bristol, to appear on a live BBC broadcast for the west regional broadcasting service.

The broadcast, on May 21, 1952, was a locally produced radio play called Dark Arrival. The Radio Times, which contained listings for all broadcasts, gave it only a short description: “imaginary case history of Negro stowaways from the British West Indies.”

The details are in the Bristol Evening Post column Radio Notes, by Mary Malone. The script was by Peter White, presumably a local journalist, who had researched stories of stowaways on boats coming into the port of Bristol and created the script from his interviews.

This BBC West radio production occurred less than four years after the HMT Empire Windrush arrived in England, and is one of the earliest to address the complex issues involved.

While most Caribbean immigrants came to England lawfully (as far as they knew) in this period, there were stowaways., including a few on the Windrush itself. Andre Williams and Shawn Randoo did an interview many years ago with Lord Kitchener for Radio 100 in Trinidad in which he discussed doing a concert on board the Windrush to raise funds to pay the passage of the stowaways.

Malone’s article about the Dark Arrival production in 1952 noted the stowaway situation was important and timely.

“Every year more and more Jamaicans (sic) driven from their own country by hardship, intent on either earning money to support the families they have left behind or finding an easier way of life, arrive in Britain.

“Few know what happens to them after once they have served a short prison sentence for stowing away in the boats.”

Malone praised the play for its depiction of the difficulties the migrants faced: “(T)he racial prejudices; the British workman who refused to work with the (black) men; the landlord who exploited them for their earnings; the employer who used them as cheap labour; the ignorance and ill manners of some of those they encounter socially.”

While not perfect, and not offering solutions to these complex issues, Malone concluded the radio play carried a ring of truth, “the truth brought home to the listener as the production moved…from courtroom to boarding house...to Employment Exchange to dance hall.”

Producer John Irving brought three young Trinidadian performers from London (and no Jamaicans!). These were the established performer Edric Connor and two younger drama students, Errol John and Errol Hill.

Connor arrived in England in 1944 and was quickly on the BBC, singing in different productions, and within a few months was featured in a BBC radio production of the Oscar Hammerstein musical Show Boat. He was featured singing spirituals in London churches, and in 1945 led a BBC radio programme called Portraits in Sepia. Soon he was also acting on stage, in TV productions and in his first feature film, Cry, the Beloved Country (1951).

In the second half of 1951, he was busy for months supporting TASPO, the Trinidad All Steel Percussion Orchestra, on its visit for the Festival of Britain and setting up a tour for it after its first concert on the South Bank.

Near the time of the Dark Arrival broadcast, Connor was also appearing weekly on The Glory Road, a BBC radio show featuring African American blues singer Josh White, among others.

All three Trinidadians would have known each other, but don’t seem to have collaborated on anything before.

In the mid-40s, Hill and John were both part of the Whitehall Players in Port of Spain – performing and involved in all aspects of the theatre company, and both writing their first plays.

In the autumn of 1948, Hill left Trinidad for London on a British Council scholarship to study dramatic arts. John followed him in the spring of 1951, also on a British Council scholarship.

They connected and appeared in a national BBC Home Service radio broadcast of Eugene O’Neill’s famous play The Emperor Jones in January 1952. John also appeared on a BBC TV children’s show. At this period Hill was leading the production in London of Derek Walcott’s first play, Henri Christophe, written when Walcott was 19.

A few months after the Dark Arrival broadcast, in October 1952, Connor produced a late-night entertainment, Cabaret Caribbean, at the Irving Theatre in London, and had Errol John read Langston Hughes’ poetry as part of it. That show also featured Jamaican Louise Bennett reading monologues and Lord Kitchener performing with Fitzroy Coleman on guitar and Rupert Nurse on bass.

It was a busy time for the three men. All would go on to celebrated careers, but this rare joint appearance in an early BBC radio play, addressing Windrush migration issues, has eluded mention until now.