THEATRE / On Theatre

Sitting beneath the trees in his San Francisco garden, Brian Freeman (below) is contemplating his return to London with Pomo Afro Homos in their new bitter-sweet show Dark Fruit.

'It asks lots of ambivalent questions and gives absolutely no answers. It's emotional stuff about relationships: personal, family, and racial.'

Is there a danger that people will consider their work an evening of political correctness? 'Good God, no. Who'd pay to see that? We're not politicians, we're artists. We're not trying to create the perfect image of a black gay man. We're creating art and we use politics. I'm an actor, a writer and director and I try to come up with fabulous outfits. We're proud and we're pretty good. We were the hit of the Lincoln Centre Serious Fun Festival last year, when we played in front of 1000 people. It was fun to be the hottest ticket in town.

'Since we were last in London with Fierce Love, we've toured and been on National TV. Even people in small towns know us. They've worked through their fear of post-modernism. We dare to get out of the ghetto. In Anchorage, Alaska, we were pretty noticeable and the Mayor tried to stop the show being advertised. (We sued and won). The audience in North Carolina was very racially mixed, as it was in Jesse Helms' territory. That's no small achievement.'

(Photograph omitted)