Recent Yarico events

1996 The story of Inkle and Yarico and the 1787 opera was forgotten, except as footnotes to university courses on the history of colonialism and race relations. And so things might have remained, had the opera not come to the attention of John and Wendy Kidd, who produce an annual festival of music and drama at the Holders Plantation in Barbados. Attracted by the Barbados connection, John Kidd found the harpsichord score in the Theatre Museum in Covent Garden and the libretto in the Yale library The festival re-staged the opera - the first time it had been produced since 1830 - as part of the 1997 Holders Season, with new arrangements by the composer Roxanna Panufnik. The Financial Times described the performance as “A gem waiting to be rediscovered”
1998 The Kidd family commissioned Paul Leigh and James McConnel to write a modern day musical based on the original story of Inkle and Yarico.
1999 The Musical was performed at the The Holders Season Barbados in March, in August it was performed at The Edinburgh Festival. The Musical Stage Magazine wrote “ The World Premier Performance of Inkle and Yarico was the highlight of this year’s festival. The storyline and the wonderful blend of musical styles took me far away from the very cold Edinburgh to the heat of Barbados. The cast of very strong singers included Michael McCarthy as Inkle and Natalie Tinn as Yarico. This performance was brilliant finish to the 1999 Edinburgh Festival.” In November there was a performance at Howard University in Washington DC. Howard University is the intellectual centre of the black community in America, the creative team were naturally eager to gauge the audience’s reaction to some of the ‘harder-hitting’ numbers that deal with racial and slavery issues. In fact, the feedback was almost overwhelmingly positive. January 20th, 2015 A public lecture entitled ‘Yarico's Flame: How a Barbadian Tale Influenced the Abolition of the Slave Trade’ was delivered at the Tom Adams Financial Centre, Bridgetown, by Dr. Frank Felsenstein, (Distinguished Professor Of Humanities, in the English Department of Ball State University, Indiana in the United States of America). January 21st, 2015 Minister of Culture in Barbados Hon. Stephen Lashley unveiled a monument in tribute to Yarico located at Kendal Plantation in Barbados where Yarico lived as a slave
2015 A new, modern version of Yarico, produced by Jodie and John Kidd was staged at the London Theatre Workshop in Fulham, London in February/March 2015.

"Am I Not A Man And A Brother? - How the institution of slavery and the ways to fight it, transformed over the years". Panel talk held at the London Theatre Workshop on 6th of March 2015, with special guests: Dr Aidan McQuade, the director of Anti Slavery International - the oldest human rights organisation in the world, Prof Frank Felsenstein who specialises in the story of Inkle and Yarico, James McConnel, a great composer and a member of Yarico the musical creative team.

On Sunday 2nd August 2015 Jodie with her niece Amber who is on the British Cycling Olympic Development apprenticeship programme were a part of “Yarico” team during the Prudential Ride London

Yarico Productions joined forces with the Wilberforce Institute for Slavery and Emancipation during this year’s Freedom Festival in Hull http://www.freedomfestival.co.uk/event/YARICO.php