The Harder They Come, Stratford East review - still packs a punch, half a century on

The impact of great art is physical as much as it is psychological. I recall the first time I saw Perry Henzell’s 1972 film, The Harder They Come. I’d been in the pub and, as we did then with just four channels, slumped in front of the television to see what was on late on a Friday night.

Within minutes, I was sitting up straight, seeing an exotic, other world unfold before me in a genre I couldn’t place (was it documentary or drama?) and a performance, by Jimmy Cliff, that reached across time and space with an urgent charisma. It wasn’t the last physical surprise the work held for me – more of that later.

Ivan arrives in “Funky Kingston” with dreams of making it big with his songs, a kid full of hope and, fatally, full of trust. The country boy (as he is reminded of repeatedly and without affection) is soon relieved of his possessions, if not his optimism, but his willingness to work, his quick, if naive, wit and an iron-clad confidence gains him friends and, soon, a girlfriend, Elsa. He has the talent to back up the big talk, and he makes a record – when people hear it, they like it.

Here things start to go wrong for Ivan. The preacher, Elsa’s guardian, has his eye on his ward, waiting for her to come of age; the record doesn’t get stocked nor garner any airtime because he refuses to sign the producer’s exploitative contract, and he becomes aware of how the politicians and police are the only ones making any real money from the ganja trade. He takes arms against this sea of troubles and, as rebels do in oppressive states, acquires a glamorous notoriety, the fame he always wanted. He’s a star as big and bright as the one on his chest, destined to burn out soon.You wouldn’t want to be accused of undue tampering with a masterpiece, but writer, Suzan-Lori Parks, has a Tony and Pulitzer Prize on her CV and director, Matthew Xia, has an Olivier, so they know what they’re doing. They also have the endorsement of Justine Henzell, Perry’s daughter, so this latest production comes to the stage updated but highly respectful of its heritage. Indeed, it’s a delight to see the callbacks to the movie – favourite scenes, iconic costumes, sly humour. Alongside that homage, there’s a subtle enhancing of the female roles, adding some much-needed agency and a real poignancy to Ivan’s relationships with his mother and his wife. It’s Jamaica in 1971, but it’s also East London in 2025.

You may not be paying West End prices, but don’t go thinking that you’re not getting West End performances! Natey Jones (pictured above with Newtion Matthews, Thomas Vernal and Marcellus Whyte) has the daunting task of following in Jimmy Cliff’s footsteps, an objectively impossible task. So he makes his own Ivan, more assertive, less vulnerable, a black man with one foot in the 70s and another in the 20s. There’s the joy of reggae, but you can feel how this Ivan comes after the likes of Gil Scott-Heron and Linton Kwesi Johnson. Jones’s high point is a magnificent delivery of the song that gives the show its title, but he is also sensitive to the fact that Ivan is no sentimental hero. He’s complicated: a loving husband, but a killer; a revolutionary with no army; a kid with a lot to learn, but no patience. But he was also mad as hell and not going to take it any more, and we don't blame him for that.

Jones is matched, in both singing and acting chops, by Madeline Charlemagne as the god-fearing Elsa, a girl who grows into a woman before our eyes. Her resistance to oppression comes at the personal level, escaping the predatory preacher, a funny but sinister Jason Pennycooke in show-stealing form, but she retreats from challenging it structurally. Sure she, like the fans of his record and his street-dealing buddies, understands her place in the rigged hierarchy and injustice that comes with it, but the price of challenging the corruption, directly and collectively, proves too much for her. She's not weak, but she, like so many in Kingston, prefer to settle for what she has.  

The singing, individually and, thrillingly, in harmony, is as impressive as I have seen in years – and what songs! That Parks has added some new ones that do not appear out of place amongst “You Can Get It If You Really Want”, “Israelites”, “I Can See Clearly Now” and many more bangers, is a testament to their quality as they move the story into a modern sensibility. And, as great musical theatre should, the score underpins characterisation, narrative and emotion as much through the music as the lyrics.

Never more so than in a bravura “Many Rivers To Cross” led by Josie Benson as Ivan’s religious mother but expanding to an ensemble work that is operatic in its scale and power. And its impact was physical. For once, the adjective spine-tingling is not a reviewer’s metaphorical flourish, but a literal description. 

I can think of no better a recommendation than that.           

• The Harder They Come at Stratford East until 25 October
• More theatre reviews on theartsdesk