Ncuti Gatwa, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Malachi Kirby star in the award-winning playwright Roy Williams' ‘Gatsby in Harlem’. A re-imagination of F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

Harlem NYC, 1925. One of the most creative cultural revolutions America has ever experienced, The Harlem Renaissance, is up and running! Young Nick Carraway runs away from the racially segregated Jim Crow laws of the Deep South for a better life as an African American in New York City. He is reunited with his cousin Daisy and meets her domineering husband, uptight black businessman Tom Buchanan. Nick rents a ground-floor grubby apartment, right in the heart of Harlem. He resides next door next to the fanciest, as well as, largest Brownstone mansion on 125th Street - owned by one Jay Gatsby. A mysterious black business magnate who often hosts extravagant all night jazz parties on every floor of his home.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw & Ncuti Gatwa recording at the Confetti Institute London

This reimagining is a faithful and beautifully crafted take of the original classic, moving the location from Long Island, dominated by WASPS (White Anglo Saxon Protestants), to the pulsating, jazz-loving streets of African American Harlem. The Harlem Renaissance offered African Americans across the country a new spirit of self determination, pride and a belief in their own American Dream, that all Americans would one day be able live and be respected and accepted as one, living in a time when segregation becomes a thing of the past.

The 1920s Jazz Age, during which Fitzgerald's novel is set, overlaps directly with The Harlem Renaissance, a vibrant cultural and artistic movement. This offered the perfect opportunity to recreate some of familiar jazz standards. Rather than using recordings, the immersion in the drama was paramount. We wanted the listener to feel like they were there, in the clubs, speakeasies or rent parties of 1925.

Granny Eats Wolf collaborated with Tomorrows Warriors, a London based Jazz company dedicated to inclusivity and diversity in Jazz, fostering a culture of mentorship to talented young jazz musicians. Led by Gary Crosby OBE, they led the musical recreations and performed all the live elements of our incredible underscore - composed by Emily Tran.