On a trip to his birthplace of Nevis in the Caribbean, Tyrone Huggins saw an elderly man handing packages of brown paper to young children and was intrigued.
He approached the stranger and discovered he was dispensing herbal remedies from his garden, a skill all but lost to even the most green-fingered among us in England, and had earned the nickname ’honey man’.
The meeting stayed with Tyrone when he journeyed back to Birmingham and a few years later he took a rough idea for a play based on the nature-loving character out to village halls as part of a project with Rural England and it blossomed.
“Some of those young people out in rural areas have aspirations like every other kid in the country to be urban and yet they were caught in a rural environment,“ says Tyrone of his experience.
“So I imagined this older rural character meeting a young rural character Misty, but being worlds apart and how do they find way to communicate and develop a friendship?“ And so his play The Honey Man, which explores Black British identity, ecological destruction and an unlikely friendship between elderly beekeeper and troubled teenage girl Misty was born.
The 58-year-old, who you may recognise from Simon Pegg film Run, Fatboy, Run and who recently appeared on stage with Kristin Scott Thomas in Electra at the Old Vic, is bringing the drama to Bernie Grant Arts Centre next week, starring himself and young Birmingham School of Acting graduate Beatrice Allen.
But he has already travelled down to north London over the last few months to work with local group Tottenham Theatre to explore the play’s ideas and create a curtain raiser for the performance called The Square.
Members of the fledging company have seized upon the theme of young and old people forming relationships and Tyrone says: “We had the first workshop in December and I have been meeting with members and working with them and I’m looking forward to seeing their final presentation.
“We’ll also have bee-keepers selling honey and two musicians performing. We want it to be an event that reaches out through Tottenham Theatre into the community and through us into the theatre community.“
Explaining the themes of his latest work Tyrone, who has written 17 plays over his career, says: “The honey man I regard as an analogue character and Misty is a digital character and I thought how would he deal with this girl and how would this girl deal with this man when they have so many differences?“
Tyrone has no problem dealing with digital technology himself as he studied computer programming at university as part of his metallurgy (the study of metals) degree, but says of the tensions between different generations: “It is the duty of the young to drag the old kicking and screaming into the future and it is the responsibility of the old to put a restraining hand on the shoulder of the young.
“Asking if technology is a good or bad thing is like asking if the wheel was a good or bad invention because you ended up with tanks,“ adds the actor, who was named after American filmstar Tyrone Power and has appeared in Doctors, Holby City and The Bill.
“It’s about how you use it and if you can find a use for modern technology then it’s good.
“That said, you can squeeze technology into every aspect of life but whether it’s appropriate or not is something you discover in time.“
Bernie Grant Arts Centre, Town Hall Approach Road, Tottenham Green, Wednesday, March 18, 7.30pm. Details: 020 8365 5450, berniegrantcentre.co.uk
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