Shakespeare’s Globe, London
Vaudevillian musical stages the story of a woman who cast herself as Princess Dinubolu of Senegal to become a beauty queen in 1908 Southend

In Southend-on-Sea, 1908, Princess Dinubolu of Senegal became the first woman of colour to enter a beauty pageant in the UK. Whether she was really royalty remains unknown, but playwright and actor Anne Odeke explores the possibilities presented by those historical gaps in Princess Essex.

Staged at the Globe, with Odeke playing the princess, imagined here as an orphaned local maid named Joanna, it’s an ensemble piece, with live band and a sense of pageantry fitting of its subject matter.