Retrograde by Ryan Calais Cameron is a tense, thoughtful and compelling insight into the difficult intersection of McCarthyism and racism and its impact on the, then emerging, black actor Sidney Poitier (Ivanno Jeremiah). Transferring from the Kiln theatre to a West End run at the Apollo, the 90 minutes play through perhaps one of the most difficult decisions Poitier will ever have made.
This is a play about choices. Who are we? What do we stand for? How much does it matter? What will we sacrifice for success? In 2025, as intellectuals get turned away from the US border, these are all too timely questions.
Inspired by real events, Retrograde has industry executives demanding that Poitier denounce Paul Robeson, one of his heroes and an active civil rights campaigner. The threat is that without this denunciation, Poitier will not be hired and will end up on the blacklist for being a communist himself.
The entire play happens over one very hot day and in one office. This claustrophobia and isolation increases the intensity of the decision Poitier has to make and the audience feel they, too, are stuck in the office.
Parks, the industry lawyer, (Stanley Johnstone) is bullying, prejudiced but eerily ambiguous in his intentions. Perhaps he is on Poitier’s side, perhaps only on his own, perhaps – in this era of McCarthyism – he feels without choice.
Poitier’s friend Bobby (Oliver Johnstone) believes himself to be truly enlightened, his lack of insight captured in the line, “I am the blackest white person you know”. He is all bravado and kinship until his own future his threatened.
At the very end, we hear Poitier’s own words about what has enabled his success: “ an untold number of courageous, unselfish choices made by a handful of visionary American film-makers, directors, writers and producers; each with a strong sense of citizenship responsibility to the times in which they lived; each unafraid to permit their art to reflect their views and values, ethical and moral, and moreover, acknowledge them as their own.“
Retrograde is an important reminder to us all that our choices matter.
Red Bus Londinium Life 
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