There is more than one way to make history

On February 19th, 2019 Joan Iyiola had some tough acts to follow.

Shazia Mirza kicked us off with some razor-sharp comedy time travel back to her youth in Birmingham and Morrisey when he was far less controversial. Nick Jessup had us in stitches with a hip-hop story about the foibles of family; nudging us to say sorry and I love you to those nearest to us. To close the first half, Carrie Grant brought the crowd to tears with a story about ‘Amazing Grace’; before singing it as hauntingly as any angel imaginable.

If anyone thought that the bar would drop post-interval, Mark Shayler reminded us that no one looks stupid when they’re having fun, before Nell Stephens made us yearn achingly for true love.

In the wake of all of this, any reasonably confident storyteller might quake and shakily make their way onto the stage with their heart in their mouth.

However, Joan Iyiola - RSC veteran, rocketing star of stage & screen - can't be described as just a reasonably confident storyteller.

The future Dame (we called it first) stepped onto the stage with the same poise and self-possession as a Greek god about to get in some lightning-bolt hurling practice. But what could she do?

She could make us laugh. Which she did. She could convey the power of music to change lives. Which she did. Then, having pulled this off, she could make history. Which she very much did.

In all the years of OneTrackMinds leading up to this, we had had audiences humming, toe-tapping, maybe even the sporadic singalong. There had been head bobbing, lyric mouthing, and even one stage invasion to a Paul Simon song. But up until that point we had never had the entire audience of Wilton’s Music Hall, stalls and balcony, on their feet and dancing in the aisles.

This note isn’t to tell you how she did it. This note is to remind you that within the pages of our first anthology is a door back to a point in time where people felt the joy and power of Joan’s words, and her accompanying song, down to their very socks.

More than this - there are another 24 stories that in their own right illuminate subjects from near death, finding identity, negotiating rites of passage and much much more.

So pledge now and become part of history!

https://unbound.com/books/onetrackminds/