Review Feature: Daniel Francis | David Oluwale | West Yorkshire | Police brutality | Red Riding | Leeds

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The Review - FEATURE
Published: 19 March 2009

Daniel Francis as David Oluwale

Keeping alive a tragic story of death

YOU wait for one West Yorkshire police brutality drama and four come along at once. No sooner does Channel 4’s dark-as-the-Styx three-part Red Riding series end than a retelling of the life and death of David Oluwale rolls into the Hackney Empire.
Oluwale’s is not a household name. A Nigerian immigrant who came to England for a better life in 1949, he died homeless and tormented by police officers in 1969; his bruised body was pulled from the River Aire in Leeds, the city he had made his home.
On the 40th anniversary of David’s death, a national tour of new play The Hounding of David Oluwale is keeping the message of his story alive. “It’s an incredibly important story,” explains Dawn Walton, the show’s director. “It’s the only time in this country that police officers have been found culpable for the death of a black man in custody. If you come from certain sections of society you’d be aware some of these elements still exist.”
The eight-man drama, which features 40 characters over a 20-year period, began life at the West Yorkshire Playhouse across the road from the police station where the two officers charged with David’s abuse were based.
David’s life went downhill after he was hit on the head during an altercation in a café. He began suffering hallucinations and was sent to an asylum for eight years.
“He came out a changed man... [and] the only black man out on the streets of Leeds,” says Ms Walton. “The families of victims of this type of crime tell me this story means so much to them because it has a beginning, middle, and end. Their’s still has no end.”
Simon Wroe

• The Hounding of David Oluwale is at the Hackney Empire from March 24-28, 7.30pm.

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