Retrograde

Bert LaBonté (Topdog/Underdog) directs a taut dramatisation of a young Sidney Poitier’s career-defining encounter with Hollywood powerbrokers, starring Donné Ngabo and international screen star Alan Dale.

It’s the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood, fuelled by big money and heady ambition. A young Sidney Poitier arrives at a television studio with a career-defining opportunity on the table. All that stands between him and a breakout lead role is a signature on a contract – or so he thinks. When the network’s fast-talking lawyer begins firing loaded questions, and the screenwriter’s loyalty to Poitier is called into question, the meeting takes a sinister turn and the cost of ambition becomes alarmingly clear.

Hailed a ‘brilliantly tense’ (The Independent) triumph in its celebrated West End run, this witty interrogation of identity, power and integrity conjures a real encounter from Poitier’s past, ten years before he would become the first Black man to win the Best Actor Oscar.