Jane Plastow

Jane Plastow in Africa

I was very sad to hear of the passing of Prof. Jane Plastow, one of the influential academics in the field of African Theatre who have for some decades populated the University of Leeds, and run the Studio Theatre there. We took The Dilemma of a Ghost there back in 2007 - undoubtedly the best informed audience we had for that piece of African theatre in the UK! I'd always mentally grouped Jane with Martin Banham, James Gibbs, Michael Etherton, David Kerr and our former Chair the late Alastair Niven as the pioneers who made the study of African literatures, and especially performance, not only legitimate but essential for modern scholarship. Reading the obituaries, I realise that Jane was actually quite a bit younger than the rest of that coterie: she was 66. Professors are supposed to keep on generating research long after most others have retired, so it's all the sadder that Jane has gone. 

That doesn't mean she hasn't left a terrific legacy. I got to know her as one of the Editors of the excellent series of books on African Theatre: I've contributed to several volumes and always loved the breadth of material included, which always embraces practitioners as well as scholars.  Unlike the British theatre, which likes to practice a weird inverse snobbery towards the academy, African theatres flourish in academic settings - most notably the University of Ibadan's Department of Theatre Arts. African theatre-makers knew that Jane's work mattered: no less a figure than Wole Soyinka attended her inaugural lecture. This synergy is related to the importance of theatre to activism in African contexts: it's no accident that one of Jane's edited books is called Theatre Matters.  For her and her African colleagues, theatre absolutely matters. It is part of liberation struggles, education, empowerment and democracy. The rest of us should learn from it.

Jane's activism was passed on to her son William: and it adds to the sadness of her early death that it has happened while William is being detained for his role in the Palestine Action protest against the Elbit Systems factory in August last year. His trial date has been set for April 2026, meaning that he will have been detained for 21 months before he is finally tried. Jane believed this to be the longest anyone will have ever been held in jail awaiting trial on protest-related charges. Custody time limits clearly state that defendants should not spend more than six months in jail awaiting trial. 

Jane was understandably outraged at the way her son was being treated. Even if Palestine Action is to be regarded as a terrorist organisation (and I emphatically believe that it should not), William is certainly not guilty of crimes against people or threatening lives. Jane had offered £50,000 bail, and agreed that William could live in her house, with all internet access removed, his body tagged, his phone and passport confiscated, and still the bail was denied.

It is deeply distressing that Jane has passed away with her son's case remaining unresolved.