Grade 9 Notes: Princess & The Hustler

Princess

The girl who crowns herself, loses the crown, and is crowned again

Phyllis James, known as Princess, is ten when the play opens. She lives with her mother, Mavis, and her seventeen-year-old brother, Junior, and in a cupboard room in the flat she imagines winning the beauty contest at Weston-super-Mare. She is lively, talkative and curious, and she does not know the man who knocks on the door on Christmas Day: he is her father. She welcomes Lorna, his younger, mixed-race daughter, and is delighted to have a sister. Through the year of the boycott, the world outside reaches her: Lorna is invited to a party she is left out of, her brother comes home after a racist attack, Lorna separates herself from her, and she suffers cruel comments about her appearance at school. At the end of the second act she cuts up the costumes of her pageant world, and in the third she disappears, leaving cut hair behind, and is found hiding in Margot's flat. Mavis rebuilds her belief in herself, and the play ends with the pageant she has imagined, her father placing the crown on her head and Black women of all sizes and nations around her.

The dream in the cupboard

The play begins inside Princess's imagination. In the cupboard room she acts out being crowned, and her mother's stern voice breaks the spell; there is no money for Christmas presents. Her dream of Weston-super-Mare is a child's dream, but the play makes it carry more: a Black girl imagining herself as the winner of a contest in 1963.

Key moment. Princess, alone in the cupboard room, acting out the moment she is crowned winner of the beauty contest, until Mavis's stern voice breaks in (Act One, Scene One). The play opens in a fantasy and then interrupts it with the real household. The audience meets the dream and the pressures on it in the same moment.

Key moment. Princess opening the door to a man she does not know, and being slapped by Mavis when she will not go to her room (Act One, Scene Two). A child's curiosity collides with a secret she has not been told. The slap shows how much the adults are hiding and how frightened Mavis is.

The year the world comes in

Princess welcomes Lorna as a sister. But through the year the prejudice that the adults are fighting outside reaches her at home and at school. Lorna is invited to a party that Princess is not. After the attack on Junior, Lorna tells Princess that she is only half, and pulls away from her. At school Princess suffers cruel, racist comments about her appearance.

Key moment. Princess left out of a party to which Lorna, her mixed-race half-sister, is invited (Act Two, Scene One). The colour bar the boycott is fighting is shown in miniature in a child's social life. The play makes prejudice personal before it makes it political.

Key moment. Lorna, after the attack on Junior, telling Princess that she is only half and pulling away from her (Act Two, Scene Three). The sisters are divided by the same racial lines that divide the city. The moment shows how prejudice teaches children to separate themselves from one another.

Key moment. Princess cutting up the costumes of her pageant world in the cupboard room (Act Two, Scene Five). The fantasy that opened the play is destroyed by the child who made it. It is the visual low point of the play and the clearest sign of what prejudice has taken from her.

Lost and crowned

In the third act Princess is missing; the family find cut hair. Margot finds her hiding in her own flat with her hair cut short, puts her to bed and brings her home. In the last two scenes Mavis rebuilds her belief in herself, and the cupboard world returns, larger than before.

Key moment. Margot finding Princess hiding in her flat, her hair cut short, and putting her to bed (Act Three, Scene Two). The cut hair turns the destruction of the pageant world onto Princess herself. That she is found by the white neighbour whose prejudice has divided the household gives the scene its complexity.

Key moment. Mavis rebuilding Princess's belief in herself as the family dress up to celebrate (Act Three, Scene Five). The repair of Princess's confidence happens in the same scene as the news that the colour bar has gone. The private and public victories are made one.

How Odimba builds Princess in language and staging

Princess opens and closes the play, so the audience sees the year through what it does to her dream.

Her cupboard room brings fantasy into a realist play: a child's imagination staged inside the family flat.

Her loss is shown through stage action rather than explanation: costumes cut up, hair cut away, a child missing.

The ending repeats the opening on a larger scale, a circular structure that turns a private game into a shared celebration.

Princess in context

She is a Black girl in 1963 dreaming of winning a seaside beauty contest, a dream that runs against the beauty standards of the time.

The colour bar the adults are fighting is mirrored in the party she is left out of and the comments she suffers at school.

A play first staged in 2019 invites its audience to ask how much of what Princess faces has changed.

Relationships

• Mavis — The strict, protective mother whose love finally restores her daughter's belief in herself.
• Wendell — The father she does not know at first, welcomes, and is finally crowned by.
• Lorna — The half-sister she longs for, who is treated differently and pulls away from her.
• Junior — The older brother who comforts her after the slap and photographs the family at the end.
• Margot — The neighbour who encourages her dream and finds her when she runs away.

What Princess stands for

• The cupboard room: the imagination as a safe world, and a world that can be destroyed.
• The crown: being seen as beautiful and valued.
• Her hair: what prejudice teaches her to reject, cut away when she runs.

Why Odimba made Princess

• To show what racism does to a child's sense of her own beauty and worth.
• To set a child's private dream beside a community's public struggle.
• To end with joy: a Black girl celebrated at the centre of the stage.

Other readings

• A child whose innocence is destroyed by the prejudice around her.
• A resilient girl whose dream survives and is finally shared by her family.
• A figure for her community: her loss of confidence and its repair mirror the boycott's struggle and success.

Essay arguments

• Odimba frames the play with Princess's pageant, so that the whole of 1963 is measured by whether a Black girl can imagine herself crowned.
• Princess's destruction of her cupboard world is the play's turning point: the moment the prejudice the adults are fighting outside reaches inside a child.
• The ending does not simply return to the opening; it enlarges it, filling the stage with Black women and placing her father inside her dream.

In theme essays

• Race, identity and belonging: the party, Lorna's words, the cut hair.
• Dreams and ambition: the cupboard world destroyed and restored.
• Family: the father who crowns her and the mother who restores her.

Questions that get asked

• How does Odimba present Princess as a character whose hopes are tested?
• How does Odimba use Princess to explore ideas about identity and belonging?

Think you understand Princess? Teach it, then defend it against Chinonyerem Odimba →

Wendell

The Hustler who comes home and finds a cause

Wendell, the Hustler of the title, is Mavis's husband and the father of Junior and Princess. He left the family about ten years before the play opens and returns on Christmas Day with Lorna, his daughter from another relationship. He came to England from Jamaica as part of the Windrush generation, served as a soldier and found that his service counted for little and good work was closed to him, and he has lived by deals and hustling. Mavis threatens him with a knife and will let only Lorna stay; at the docks he leaves the girls waiting while he pursues a deal and clashes physically with Junior, telling his son he is back to make good. Through the year of the boycott he grows closer to Mavis, offers to support Junior's protest, argues with Margot about it and goes out to find the youths who attacked his son. When Junior offers him his savings to leave, he goes, and returns two days later having given his time to the boycott. He asks Mavis to marry him again, appears in the family photograph, and in the last scene, in a dress and make-up, crowns his daughter.

The return

Wendell enters as an intruder. The knock at the door on Christmas Day interrupts the household, Mavis threatens him with a knife, and only the revelation of Lorna changes the scene. At the Christmas meal Lorna is allowed to stay but Wendell is not.

Key moment. Wendell, threatened with a knife by Mavis, revealing that he has brought his young daughter Lorna (Act One, Scene Three). The confrontation turns on a child. Wendell's entrance is aggressive and pitiful at once, and Lorna's appearance makes Mavis hide the knife.

Key moment. Wendell leaving Princess and Lorna waiting at the docks while he pursues a deal (Act One, Scene Six). The only scene outside the flat shows the Hustler at his least responsible. The audience sees exactly why Junior distrusts him.

Key moment. Wendell clashing physically with Junior at the docks and telling him he is back to make good (Act One, Scene Six). His promise is made in a moment of force. The play lets the audience doubt the promise because of how it is made.

Finding a cause

In the second act Wendell grows closer to Mavis and offers to support the protest march Junior tells them about. After a night out he argues with Margot about the boycott, and when Junior comes home attacked he goes out to find the youths responsible. The hustler begins to have a cause.

Key moment. Wendell arguing with Margot about the boycott after a night out (Act Two, Scene Two). The argument puts the city's debate inside the flat. Wendell defends the boycott against a friend of the family, and Mavis's feelings for him warm.

Key moment. Wendell storming out to find the youths who attacked Junior (Act Two, Scene Three). His anger is a father's anger at last. The play leaves open whether it is protection or the old recklessness.

Making good

When Junior offers him his savings to leave, Wendell goes. In the third act he returns after two days, and his absence turns out to have been given to the boycott campaign. Junior suspects that he has taken the money; the play then moves him towards the family. He asks Mavis to marry him again, is in the family photograph, and crowns Princess.

Key moment. Junior offering Wendell his savings if he will leave the family (Act Two, Scene Five). A son tries to buy his father out of the family. The scene shows how little trust Wendell has earned and how much Junior has had to carry.

Key moment. Wendell returning after two days away, his time given to the boycott, and asking Mavis to marry him again (Act Three, Scene Four). The return reverses the expectation that he has abandoned the family again. His private redemption is joined to a public cause.

How Odimba builds Wendell in language and staging

Wendell enters as a knock at the door, an intrusion into a household that has learned to manage without him.

His voice, in Jamaican patois, marks him as a man of the Windrush generation in a city that keeps him at a distance.

Structurally he moves from outside the family to inside its photograph and inside his daughter's dream.

Wendell in context

He came from Jamaica, served as a soldier and found his service unvalued and good work closed to him, which the play sets beside his hustling.

His two days given to the boycott tie his redemption to the campaign that ended the colour bar in August 1963.

Relationships

• Mavis — The wife he left, who threatens him with a knife and is slowly won back.
• Junior — The son who distrusts him most and offers him money to leave.
• Princess — The daughter who did not know him and whom he finally crowns.
• Lorna — The daughter he brings with him, the reason Mavis lets him in.
• Margot — The neighbour he argues with about the boycott.

What Wendell stands for

• The title: the hustler as a man surviving by deals in a country that closed good work to him.
• The docks: the world of deals he brings his daughters into.
• The dress and make-up: a man setting aside pride to enter his daughter's dream.

Why Odimba made Wendell

• To show a man let down by Britain and by his own choices, and what it takes to change.
• To show the boycott giving a man purpose and a family a reason to trust him.
• To question what a father owes, and how he can repay it.

Other readings

• A charming man who has not really changed, forgiven too easily.
• A man let down by the country that invited him, redeemed by a cause.
• A father who changes only when he enters his daughter's world on her terms.

Essay arguments

• Odimba joins Wendell's private redemption to the public success of the boycott, so that a man and a city change together.
• Wendell's return is staged as an intrusion, and the play makes him earn his way back through the household, scene by scene.
• The final image of Wendell in a dress and make-up crowning Princess shows how far the Hustler has travelled.

In theme essays

• Family and parenting: the knock, the docks, the proposal.
• Protest and the boycott: the argument with Margot and the two days away.
• Race and identity: a soldier whose service was not valued.

Questions that get asked

• How does Odimba present Wendell as a character who changes?
• How does Odimba use Wendell to explore ideas about family and responsibility?

Think you understand Wendell? Teach it, then defend it against Chinonyerem Odimba →

Mavis

The mother who holds everything together and learns to hope again

Mavis is the mother of Junior and Princess and the wife Wendell left. She works several jobs to keep the family going and runs the household strictly, quick to threaten punishment and fiercely protective. There is no money for presents on Christmas Day. When Wendell knocks she shuts the door, slaps Princess when she will not go to her room, and threatens Wendell with a knife until he reveals Lorna. She lets Lorna stay but not Wendell. Through the year she softens towards him; she is at first unconvinced by the boycott, falls out with Margot over it and over Wendell, and defends her husband, hoping that a man can change as a city can. When Princess runs away and Margot brings her home, Mavis welcomes her friend back. Wendell asks to marry her again. Late in the play she tells him of her own quiet dreams for her children, and in the penultimate scene, as the family dress up to celebrate the end of the colour bar, she rebuilds her daughter's belief in herself.

Strict and protective

Mavis's first lines in the play are stern, and her threats of punishment are taken seriously by her children. The play shows why: she is raising two children alone on several jobs, with nothing left for Christmas presents.

Key moment. Mavis, on Christmas Day, telling her children there is no money for presents (Act One, Scene One). Her sternness and her guilt appear together. The audience sees the cost of raising children alone before it meets the man who left.

Key moment. Mavis threatening Wendell with a knife, then hiding it when she sees Lorna (Act One, Scene Three). Her fury protects the household; the hidden knife shows her protectiveness reaching a child who is not hers.

Softening

Through the second act Mavis grows closer to Wendell, and after the night out their romance rekindles. When Margot criticises Wendell and the boycott, Mavis defends him, hoping that a man can change as a city can, and the two friends part on bad terms.

Key moment. Mavis defending Wendell to Margot, hoping a man can change just as the city can (Act Two, Scene Four). Her hope for her husband is joined to the hope of the boycott. Defending him costs her a friendship.

Hope and repair

In the third act Mavis welcomes Margot back after she brings Princess home. Wendell asks to marry her again. As the news arrives that the colour bar is lifted, she gathers the family to celebrate and rebuilds Princess's confidence.

Key moment. Mavis telling Wendell about her own quiet dreams for her children, and for the country to see them (Late in the play, Mavis to Wendell). The woman who has spent the play holding things together reveals that she has dreams too. Her dream is for her children to be seen.

Key moment. Mavis welcoming Margot back after she brings Princess home (Act Three, Scene Three). The broken friendship is repaired through care for a child. The play does not pretend Margot's views have vanished, but it allows the bond.

How Odimba builds Mavis in language and staging

Mavis is introduced through a stern voice breaking into her daughter's fantasy, so the audience meets her strictness first.

Stage properties carry her feelings: the knife at the door, hidden behind her back when she sees a child.

Late in the play she speaks of her own quiet dreams, and the revelation changes how the audience sees her earlier harshness.

Mavis in context

She raises two children on several jobs, the hard work many families of the Windrush generation knew.

Her move from doubt about the boycott to celebration follows the arc of a community that won.

Relationships

• Princess — The daughter she disciplines, protects and finally restores.
• Wendell — The husband she threatens, then defends, then considers taking back.
• Junior — The son who has shared the weight of the household.
• Margot — The friend she falls out with and welcomes back.
• Lorna — Another woman's child, whom she takes in.

What Mavis stands for

• The knife hidden behind her back: protection that gives way to a child's need.
• Her several jobs: the labour the boycott era did not reward.
• The celebration she leads: a community's win shared by her family.

Why Odimba made Mavis

• To show the strength and the cost of a mother holding a family together alone.
• To show that hope can be renewed in a person and in a country.
• To make a mother's love the force that repairs the damage of prejudice.

Other readings

• The moral centre of the play, whose strength holds everyone together.
• A harsh parent whose anger is part of the pressure on Princess.
• A woman whose hard defences hide dreams she has had to keep quiet.

Essay arguments

• Odimba introduces Mavis as stern and frightening, then reveals the dreams and love beneath, so that the audience's view of her changes as Wendell's does.
• Mavis's hope that a man can change as a city can makes her the link between the family story and the boycott.
• The repair of Princess's confidence belongs to Mavis, not to the pageant, which suggests that being valued at home is where a child's self-belief begins.

In theme essays

• Family and parenting: the slap, the knife, the restoring of Princess.
• Dreams and ambition: her quiet dreams for her children.
• Protest and the boycott: from doubt to celebration.

Questions that get asked

• How does Odimba present Mavis as a strong woman?
• How does Odimba use Mavis to explore ideas about hope?

Think you understand Mavis? Teach it, then defend it against Chinonyerem Odimba →

Junior

The son with a camera who will not forgive easily

Wendell Junior is Princess's seventeen-year-old brother, a budding photographer whose camera is always with him and who is saving for an apprenticeship. He resents the father who left. After the slap he comforts Princess. At the docks he and his friend Leon find the girls waiting alone; Leon takes them home, and Junior and Wendell clash physically. In the second act Junior tells the family about a protest march for the boycott and comes home having been attacked by white racists on the way back. Later he offers his father his savings to leave. When Princess goes missing he suspects his father of taking the money. In the penultimate scene he takes a family photograph that includes Wendell.

The protector

Junior's first role is protective. He comforts Princess after the slap and, at the docks, has Leon take the girls home before confronting his father.

Key moment. Junior comforting Princess after Mavis has slapped her (Act One, Scene Four). The older brother explains the adult world to a child who cannot yet understand it. He is already partly a parent.

Key moment. Junior and Leon finding the girls waiting alone at the docks, and Junior having Leon take them home (Act One, Scene Six). Junior acts as the responsible adult his father is failing to be.

Joining the cause

Junior brings the boycott into the flat. He tells his parents about a protest march, and he pays a price for it: on the way home he is attacked by white racists.

Key moment. Junior telling his parents about a protest march for the boycott, and Wendell offering his support (Act Two, Scene One). The cause becomes a possible meeting point between father and son. Junior neither accepts nor refuses.

Key moment. Junior coming home attacked by white racists after the protest (Act Two, Scene Three). The violence of the city enters the flat on the body of a son. The scene shows the risk of protest in 1963.

The photograph

Junior offers his father his savings to leave, and when Princess goes missing suspects him of taking the money. Yet it is Junior who takes the family photograph with Wendell in it.

Key moment. Junior offering Wendell his savings if he will leave the family (Act Two, Scene Five). A son tries to buy his family's safety from his own father. The money he has saved for his future is offered to protect the others.

Key moment. Junior taking a family photograph that includes Wendell (Act Three, Scene Five). The camera has been a way of standing apart and watching. Now it is used to place his father inside the family.

How Odimba builds Junior in language and staging

Junior's camera makes him a watcher, and the family photograph he takes near the end is one of the play's key stage pictures.

His conflict with his father is staged physically at the docks and financially when he offers his savings.

His injuries bring the violence of the city into the domestic set.

Junior in context

Students marched through Bristol in support of the boycott and were heckled; Junior's march and the attack on him belong to that history.

A young Black man saving for an apprenticeship in 1963 faced a city in which some jobs were closed to him.

Relationships

• Wendell — The father he resents, fights, pays to leave, and finally photographs with the family.
• Princess — The sister he comforts and protects.
• Mavis — The mother whose burden he has shared.
• Leon — His friend, who helps when the family needs it.

What Junior stands for

• The camera: watching, recording and, at the end, framing a family.
• His savings: his future, offered to protect the family.
• His injuries: the risk of protest carried home.

Why Odimba made Junior

• To show a young man forced into responsibility by his father's absence.
• To show the cost of protest for the young Black people of 1963.
• To show forgiveness as something earned slowly.

Other readings

• A young man who has had to be the man of the house too early.
• An activist whose cause gives him a way to meet his father.
• A watcher whose photograph shows the family it has become.

Essay arguments

• Junior's resentment keeps the audience from forgiving Wendell too quickly, so his final photograph carries weight.
• Through Junior the play shows the boycott's risks as well as its triumph.
• Junior's camera is Odimba's way of asking the audience what kind of picture of this family, and this city, should be kept.

In theme essays

• Family and parenting: the offer of his savings.
• Protest and the boycott: the march and the attack.
• Dreams and ambition: the camera and the apprenticeship.

Questions that get asked

• How does Odimba present the relationship between Junior and his father?
• How does Odimba use Junior to explore ideas about responsibility?

Think you understand Junior? Teach it, then defend it against Chinonyerem Odimba →

Margot

The neighbour who loves the family and does not see her own prejudice

Margot is Mavis's white neighbour and friend, a Bristolian who is part of the family's life and encourages Princess's pageant dream. She arrives at the Christmas meal and is drawn to Wendell. She also voices the casual racism of her time: she dismisses the boycott, argues with Wendell about it after a night out, and later quarrels with Mavis over the boycott and over Wendell, so that the two women fall out. In the third act it is Margot who finds Princess hiding in her flat, her hair cut short; she puts her to bed and brings her home, and Mavis welcomes her back.

Friend of the family

Margot is part of the family's everyday life. She encourages Princess's dream of Weston-super-Mare and comes and goes in the flat. On Christmas Day she arrives at the meal and is drawn to the stranger at the table.

Key moment. Margot arriving at the Christmas meal and being drawn to Wendell (Act One, Scene Five). Her arrival lightens a tense scene and also shows how little she knows of what is happening. Comedy and discomfort come together.

The limits of friendship

When the boycott begins, Margot's friendship shows its limits. She dismisses the campaign, argues with Wendell, and quarrels with Mavis over the boycott and over Wendell.

Key moment. Margot dismissing the boycott in an argument with Wendell after a night out (Act Two, Scene Two). Her views are the everyday prejudice of the city voiced by someone the family loves. The play lets the audience see how ordinary such attitudes were.

Key moment. Margot quarrelling with Mavis over the boycott and over Wendell, and the two friends parting on bad terms (Act Two, Scene Four). The public argument divides a private friendship.

Care

In the third act Margot's love for the family shows. She finds Princess, looks after her and brings her home, and the friendship is restored.

Key moment. Margot bringing Princess home and being welcomed back by Mavis (Act Three, Scene Three). The play allows a reconciliation without pretending prejudice has vanished. Care for a child reconnects the two women.

How Odimba builds Margot in language and staging

Margot's Bristolian voice brings the white city into the flat.

She is used for comedy at the Christmas meal and for conflict in the second act, so the audience likes her and is troubled by her.

Her care for Princess in the third act complicates any simple judgement.

Margot in context

Her dismissal of the boycott reflects the views of many white Bristolians who opposed or doubted the campaign in 1963.

She shows the casual, everyday prejudice that the law did not yet touch.

Relationships

• Mavis — Her friend, from whom she is divided by the boycott and reconciled through Princess.
• Princess — The girl whose dream she encourages and whom she finds.
• Wendell — The man she is drawn to and argues with.

What Margot stands for

• Her flat: a refuge for a child who has run away.
• Her Bristolian voice: the city itself in the room.

Why Odimba made Margot

• To show that prejudice can live inside affection.
• To give the audience a white Bristolian of 1963 who is neither villain nor ally.

Other readings

• An everyday racist whose kindness does not excuse her views.
• A loving friend limited by the attitudes of her time.
• A representative of the white city that the boycott had to persuade.

Essay arguments

• Margot is Odimba's way of showing casual racism from inside a friendship, which makes it harder to dismiss.
• Margot finding Princess complicates the play's picture of prejudice: care and blindness exist in the same person.

In theme essays

• Race, identity and belonging: casual prejudice in a friend.
• Protest and the boycott: the white city's doubts.

Questions that get asked

• How does Odimba present Margot?
• How does Odimba use Margot to explore attitudes to race in 1963?

Think you understand Margot? Teach it, then defend it against Chinonyerem Odimba →

Race, identity and belonging

Prejudice shapes what a Black child in 1963 believes about her own beauty and where she belongs.

The play shows racism at two scales. In the city, a colour bar keeps Black and Asian workers off the buses, and protesters are attacked. At home and at school, prejudice reaches a ten-year-old: Princess is left out of a party Lorna is invited to, Lorna tells her she is only half and pulls away, and Princess suffers cruel comments about her appearance. Her answer is to cut up her pageant costumes and, when she runs, to cut her hair.

Key moment. Princess cutting up the costumes of her pageant world (Act Two, Scene Five). The destruction is self-directed. The audience sees prejudice turned inward by a child.

Key moment. Lorna telling Princess she is only half and pulling away from her (Act Two, Scene Three). Children reproduce the city's racial lines inside one family.

Context that changes the reading. In 1963 racial discrimination in employment was legal in Britain. In Bristol the bus company, with the local branch of the transport union, refused to employ Black and Asian people as bus crews; the boycott that began in April 1963 was a campaign against that colour bar.

Use this in an essay. Frame: Odimba lets the colour bar the adults are fighting appear in miniature in a child's life, so that the boycott is measured by what it means for Princess.

Think you understand Race, identity and belonging in Princess & The Hustler? Teach it, then defend it →

Family and parenting

A family that has learned to manage without its father has to decide whether to let him back in.

The play opens on a household that works: a strict, loving mother, a responsible son, a daughter with a dream. Wendell's knock unsettles it. Mavis threatens him, Junior fights him and later offers him money to leave, and Princess, who did not know him, welcomes the sister he brings. The play tests what a father owes and how he can make good, and it ends with the family dressed up together, a photograph with Wendell in it, and a father inside his daughter's dream.

Key moment. Wendell and Junior clashing at the docks, and Wendell saying he is back to make good (Act One, Scene Six). The family's question is stated in a moment of force.

Key moment. Junior taking a family photograph that includes Wendell (Act Three, Scene Five). The family picture records the change the play has made.

Context that changes the reading. Many Caribbean families of the Windrush generation lived with long separations and hard work for low pay. Mavis raising two children on several jobs reflects the pressures the play's audience is asked to imagine.

Use this in an essay. Frame: Odimba stages the family as a household that must decide whether to let its father back, and makes the boycott the test that lets him earn it.

Think you understand family and parenting in Princess & The Hustler? Teach it, then defend it →

Dreams and ambition (minor)

Every member of the family has a dream, and the play asks whether 1963 Britain will let them come true.

Princess dreams of a crown at Weston-super-Mare. Junior has his camera and is saving for an apprenticeship. Mavis tells Wendell of her quiet dreams for her children and for the country to see them. Wendell needs work. The play opens and closes with Princess's dream, destroyed in the middle and restored, enlarged, at the end.

Key moment. Mavis telling Wendell of her quiet dreams for her children (Late in the play, Mavis to Wendell). A mother who has had no time for fantasies reveals her own.

Key moment. Princess crowned as Black women of all sizes and nations surround her (Act Three, Scene Six). The dream is completed, and shared.

Context that changes the reading. Weston-super-Mare is a seaside resort near Bristol. A Black girl imagining herself winner of its contest in 1963 is a dream that runs against the beauty standards of the time.

Use this in an essay. Frame: Odimba gives every member of the family a dream and makes Princess's the measure of all of them.

Think you understand dreams and ambition in Princess & The Hustler? Teach it, then defend it →

Protest and the boycott (minor)

The Bristol Bus Boycott reaches the family through a march, an attack, an argument and a radio announcement.

The boycott is never staged directly; it arrives in the flat. Junior tells the family about a protest march and comes home attacked. Wendell argues with Margot about it and gives two days to the campaign. Mavis is unconvinced at first and ends by celebrating. The news that the colour bar has been lifted arrives as the family dress up, and the public victory and the private repair happen together.

Key moment. News that the colour bar has been lifted as the family dress up to celebrate (Act Three, Scene Five). The public victory is staged as a domestic moment.

Key moment. Junior coming home attacked by white racists after the protest (Act Two, Scene Three). The cost of protest is carried into the home.

Context that changes the reading. The boycott was led by the West Indian Development Council, with Paul Stephenson as its spokesman. University students marched in support. In August 1963 the bus company ended the colour bar, and in September Raghbir Singh became the city's first bus conductor of colour. The campaign is often said to have influenced the Race Relations Act 1965.

Use this in an essay. Frame: Odimba keeps the boycott offstage so that the audience sees what a public struggle means inside one family's home.

Think you understand protest and the boycott in Princess & The Hustler? Teach it, then defend it →