Advertisement

Nikki Amuka-Bird: 'Kwame Kwei-Armah is the sort of guy who grabs your hand — I said yes'

Role model: Nikki Amuka-Bird: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures L
Role model: Nikki Amuka-Bird: Daniel Hambury/Stella Pictures L

Next week, Kwame Kwei-Armah, the recently announced artistic director of the Young Vic, will open a new play at the Donmar Warehouse, a Caribbean-set interpretation of Ibsen’s The Lady From the Sea.

But who has the future of London theatre chosen as his star and muse? That honour goes to Nikki Amuka-Bird, who plays pining young bride Ellida. She’s still fondly remembered from her role in Luther, riding high from her Bafta-nominated performance in the BBC’s adaptation of Zadie Smith’s NW, and, as it happens, frequently to be found in the vicinity of large bodies of water.

“I just came back, actually, about a month ago,” she says as she roots around in her handbag for her phone, so she can show me some pictures of the family home in Antigua. “I really understand this idea of returning home, to the water and needing to rejuvenate that way.” The photographs show a beautiful, tranquil room, entirely open to the ocean view on one side, with linen curtains fluttering in the breeze. We might be thousands of miles away, on a grey day in Covent Garden, but you can almost feel the warm sunshine.

Although she was born in Nigeria, Amuka-Bird has lived in this way — dividing her time between the Caribbean and London — ever since her Antiguan mother and Nigerian father separated when she was a child. “My mum was a magazine editor so I was travelling a lot with her to fashion shoots, and London felt like part of that adventure.”

Aside from showing her the world, Amuka-Bird’s glamorous parent also influenced her outlook in other ways. “She might have to do a menial job to pay the bills but she was the sort of person who thought you’d better do it in some red lipstick and feel good about yourself. She believed that you’re the only person who can define who you are. She always looked incredible.”

Like mother, like daughter then. Amuka-Bird’s measured elegance makes it no surprise to learn that she trained as a dancer. A back injury in her late teens convinced her to pursue drama instead but she’s still often to be found in the audience at Sadler’s Wells and is “obsessed” with the work of Israeli-born, London-based choreographer Hofesh Shechter. “His recent piece Grand Finale just blew my mind,” she says. “I’ve just about reconciled myself to the fact that I probably won’t get to dance professionally.”

Yet if acting is the fallback career, she hides her disappointment well. Two weeks into a five-week rehearsal schedule and she’s still brimming with enthusiasm about the opportunity to work with Kwei-Armah. “He’s been an actor as well, so he’s very good at alleviating our fears and going, ‘You’ve got this’.” They also bonded over their shared Caribbean heritage (Kwei-Armah’s parents were born in Grenada) and every day begins with “carnival time” dance warm-ups. “He puts on, like, proper jams!”

Role model: Nikki Amuka-Bird, left, and above in rehearsals for The Lady From the Sea with director Kwame Kwei-Armah, far left, and Helena Wilson, centre
Role model: Nikki Amuka-Bird, left, and above in rehearsals for The Lady From the Sea with director Kwame Kwei-Armah, far left, and Helena Wilson, centre

She has also relished the opportunity to become utterly absorbed in Ibsen’s themes of social strictures and familial duty, to the point of wearing Ellida’s wedding ring to our interview. This results in a slightly awkward exchange, when I assume she’s still married to actor Geoffrey Streatfeild, her husband from 2003, but no longer, apparently: “I was married for seven years, quite a long time ago, and even though that marriage didn’t work out I think this idea of making this commitment to another human being is really honourable and admirable.”

There is a maturity to the play that she responds to. When so much of our culture is aimed at teenagers — superhero movies, reality TV nonsense, dating dramedies — it’s refreshing to work on material that tackles the concerns of grown-ups. “Yeah, exactly, and I think a big part of being grown up is that you start to think about lost passions, be it professionally, artistically or romantically. You start to think maybe you have fewer options because of choices earlier in life.” Like realising you’re not going to be a dancer? “Well, exactly!”

If this is a relatively new sensation, it’s because Amuka-Bird was brought up to feel as free as her romantic surname suggests. At the age of 11 she was enrolled in a liberal, uniform-free boarding school in Surrey, where pupils are encouraged to follow their creative instincts. “I realise now how hard my mum had to work to send me there, and she did it because she was really passionate about being in an environment where I could explore anything and not be conscious of class or race, or anything like that.”

Other famous alumni include Rufus Hound, Jack Dee and the actor Jim Sturgess, with whom Amuka-Bird was recently reunited on the set of the BBC’s Hard Sun, an upcoming “pre-apocalyptic crime drama” from Luther creator Neil Cross. “He was this cute little skater boy!” she says of her former school pal. Before Hard Sun, there was a period in the US working on Quarry, a Memphis-set crime series, which despite a quality cast never made it to a second season. “Are you the only person that saw it?” she says, archly, when I mention it. “Was it you?”

Amuka-Bird’s affection for America hasn’t waned but there is something about the “diversity of the stories” in the UK which keeps her rooted here. “I’m becoming more interested in developing projects myself, which I is something that I got from being in America, that real sense of ‘yes you can’. So I go over there, get a fix and try and bring it over here.”

It was during the course of one such project, an actors’ workshop on classic texts, that Amuka-Bird and Kwei-Armah first began discussing their collaboration. “It was unlike any other chat I’d ever had,” she says, laughing at the recollection. “He was giving a talk on diversity and he said, ‘Why don’t we have our chat, but on stage, microphoned, in front of a room full of producers, writers and directors?’ He’s the sort of guy who grabs your hand and says, ‘Do you want to jump into something with me?’ I said yes.”

Fittingly, The Lady From the Sea is shaping up as a triumphant example of how London theatre can both do justice to classics and reflect the city’s contemporary diversity. It’s not really about race, says Amuka-Bird, but it’s not afraid to explore those questions either. “This is an interracial couple and with Ellida being written as somebody who feels alienated in her new environment, so perhaps there are some things I can bring from my experience? … What’s great is that we can disregard these things if we want to. This is a play about the human psyche and a man writing all that time ago can encompass all that.”

There are many aspects of the play that Amuka-Bird connects to but one is more personal than the rest: “My mother passed away last year and I’m fascinated by how you have to carry on as normal when something profoundly difficult has happened…” she trails off for a moment and laughs again: “As I say it, I’m like, ‘Why would I want to explore that?’” Another testament to the persuasiveness powers of Kwame Kwei-Armah, perhaps? In any case, there will be plenty of opportunity to recover once the run is finished. What will she do? “I’ll go back to the sea!”

The Lady From the Sea is at the Donmar Warehouse from October 12th 2017 - December 2nd 2017; donmarwarehouse.com