ONE FINE DAY Britain's Empire on the Brink

British actor Ben Onwukwe contributes the adamant and histrionic tone and British accent that are appropriate to a postcolonial audit of Britain's colonial past. The focal point of the narrative is September 29, 1923, the date that marked the Empire's greatest territorial expanse. All before that was acquisition; all after it, loss. And well-deserved loss, too, by this account. Rapacity, greed, racial prejudice, and economic oppression abound--all cloaked, often infuriatingly, in a Eurocentric paternalism and all expressed here in towering vowels and resounding periods. The narrative proves insightful and rich in drama but is heavily overladen. Narrator overpowers narrative, and voice upstages content. The effect is a bit cloying and tiring, but Onwukwe is a sufferable ham, and this is history everyone should hear. D.A.W. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2023]