A Character Construction of Gabriel Roberts’ Play: The Trial of Busumbala

Introduction

This is one of the most high profile plays ever written by any Gambian playwright. Set in Armitage High School, Georgetown, where the author was principal in the early 1960s, the play was broadcast on the BBC African theatre series in 1970, acted by a distinguished cast including the late Alex Tetteh Lartey, Louis Mahoney and Cosmo Pieterse. The play is a biting satire on one Hon Busumbala MP for Georgetown who removed the noisy radio of the school’s principal as demanded by his constituents.

The play has received rave reviews for its “excellent characterization” (1) the result of Mr. Roberts’ deft portrayal of his characters’ attributes (“pomposity, pigheadedness idiocy”), chiefly in the way they speak about themselves.

The piece, as published by Heinemann in an anthology in 1971, has eight characters: judge, prosecuting counsel, defence counsel, Maxwell Armitage, Mohammadu Casterbridgia, Sambang Sambou, Sergeant and sales manager. Of these, the prosecuting officer, Armitage Sambou, stands out as the primary character; the judge, defence counsel and Casterbridgia are secondary characters; the rest, are inconsequential players in the plot. Indeed the roles are acted by one person in the BBC production of the play. However, to the author’s credit, it is these minor characters who give the play a surprise, anti-climatic, punchy finish just before fade-out. More importantly, none of the characters are veritable, all are exaggerations, the chief ingredient of a good farce, as this play is!

The classification above is predicated on the input of the characters in the progress of the play and in its denouement. It is through the actions and words of the lead characters that the plot unfolds, thickens and hatches almost seamlessly. The last testimony of Armitage, the school principal and plaintiff as owner of the missing radio set, introduce to the reader or audience the more subtle background to the disappearance of the radio as he outlines the tension which exists between him and his black staff caused by the noisy radio. This prompts the staff to lodge a complaint to the Hon Busumbala, MP, whose only solution to the issue is to steal Armitage’s radio set! In the same vein, the lengthy monologue of the prosecuting counsel at the onset of the play expatiates on the background to the court case, while Sambou’s testimony sheds light on the play’s politics (the plaintiff and the defendant belong to rival parties) and conflict (tension between the white principal and his Gambian staff).

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