The night Nina Simone brought a dilapidated Manchester theatre back to life
You can just imagine the theatre now: proud, powerful, inviting, and with the name Nina Simone emblazoned in its glittering lights. But this was not Broadway or the West End – this was Hulme.
Admittedly, there aren’t many genre-spanning musical icons who come calling in an inner-city council ward to the south of Manchester. But even still, the fact that Simone came to perform there was no accident or error in scheduling. Indeed, wherever she sat down at her piano, that little part of the world knew it was about to be changed.
Coming to Manchester, however, marked a far more turbulent time in Simone’s life than she had ever experienced before. This was now the best part of three decades down the line since the civil rights movement first burst into the social conscience and changed the course of the musician’s life forever, becoming heralded not just for her sonics but also for her place in history.
Simone spoke openly about her mixed feelings towards this and the pressure it placed on her later, but the fact remained that she could never escape her influence on the Black community, for better or worse. Yet the constant toll of stardom began to show; her performances were increasingly smaller, more erratic, and clutched by alcohol.
It was with the help of friends that she managed to get back on track by living a relatively anonymous life in the Netherlands, and by 1991, she was back in the saddle. Perhaps it was this sense of reflection which reignited in her the spark of what she had always been, because when she heard about a new space for Black people in Hulme, Simone was straight there to grace its stage.
The Hulme Hippodrome, as it was then known, was a local theatre that had seen some seismic stars perform in its time. Yet by the early 1990s, it was crying out for a regeneration that benefited the African and Caribbean populations in the UK, and as such, rebranded to the Nia Centre, serving as the first arts hub for this demographic.
Of course, you could have no greater star to open the doors and have people flooding in from the streets than Simone, whose electric energy completely lit up the stage and left a tingling legacy that not only changed the fabric of that theatre, but all its surrounding community, forever. The High Priestess of Soul is still spoken about in reverence there, mainly because she knew what it was to give a voice to the voiceless.
Simone’s irreversible impact on Hulme was simply a wider reflection of everything she achieved in terms of altering the wider cultural landscape of the world. But for the Nia Centre, now known as Niamos, her presence came charged with a power that still leaves it standing strongly today, with her unmistakable voice ringing in its ears.
That speaks volumes about everything Simone was in her lifetime. Even through her darkest times and when the chips were down, she could still create something incredible. Then, when she was back to the top of her game, she was completely unstoppable – and woe betide anyone who would dare to stand in her way.
