Kamkwamba Windmill Story Hits London as Musical
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- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind musical is playing at @sohoplace in London until 18 July, adapted from William Kamkwamba's memoir and the 2019 film of the same name.
- William Kamkwamba's real story: in 2001, during a famine in Wimbe, Malawi, then-13-year-old William dropped out of school and built a windmill from scrapyard materials and library books to bring electricity to his village.
- Alistair Nwachukwu plays William in the musical, with Sifiso Mazibuko as his farmer father Trywell, Tsemaye Bob-Egbe as sister Annie, Idriss Kargbo as best friend Gilbert, and Choolwe Laina Muntanga as the personification of the wind.
- Mazibuko's performance as Trywell anchors the show, walking a "delicate line" in the tragic catch-22 of needing his son's hands on the farm while wanting him educated.
- The choreography shines in "One Less (The Hyena)," the show's most dramatic number, and the production uses animal puppets that add "surprising pathos," though most songs are called "pleasant but forgettable."
- The review notes the first half doesn't fully click but "locks into place" when Wimbe's crisis deepens — at the performance attended, a tragic moment for William left the audience visibly tearful.
Why it matters: The musical gives Kamkwamba's well-traveled survival-and-innovation story a new theatrical medium at @sohoplace through July 18, with choreography and puppetry emerging as the production's strongest elements per a reviewer who attended a performance. For audiences, it's a chance to encounter the Malawi windmill narrative through song and movement rather than the TED talk, memoir, or 2019 film.
