I arrived at The Arch not a fan of Reggae or Bob Marley. An hour, as it turned out, seventy-five minutes, later, I left transformed. That transformation is the clearest measure of what Duane Forrest achieves in this remarkable solo work.

The show weaves three threads simultaneously: music history, Marley biography, and Forrest’s own story. In lesser hands this could become a checklist. Here the intertwining is effortless, the threads inseparable.

Consider one quietly devastating detail: Marley died in the year Forrest was born. The legacy and the inheritor arrive at the same moment in time, and the whole show breathes differently once you know that.

Forrest earns your investment in his personal story by first earning your investment in the music itself. He doesn’t assume you are a fan. He supplies context – the meaning behind No Woman, No Cry, the fact that Do the Reggae marks the first recorded usage of the word – making the show accessible to the unconverted without condescending to the devoted. His vocal performances are simply beautiful, strong enough to satisfy the most ardent fan, open enough to welcome the curious newcomer.

The show’s most surprising revelation is that Rastafarians observe Nazarite vows – the same vows taken by Samson and John the Baptist – which forbid cutting the hair or shaving.

More significantly, beneath reggae’s irresistible sunniness runs a dark undercurrent rooted in slavery and violence. It is this tension that gives the show its dramatic spine, building with genuine intention toward a climax rooted in violence and resolving into hope – not the easy, uplifting kind, but the earned kind.

His own identity narrative is presented not as comprehensive biography but as a series of telling moments. The most memorable: a young Forrest asking his mother to apply a hair-straightening perm, emerging looking like Sonic the Hedgehog, surviving the schoolyard fallout, and deciding finally to embrace his authentic locks. It is a small story that contains an entire journey.

Watching him, I found myself thinking about my own paternal great-grandmother, a full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal – a heritage kept secret from my father until he was an adult, who told me as soon as he found out himself.

Over the years I’ve made half-hearted attempts to explore it, never quite knowing where to begin. There is no Aboriginal Bob Marley to guide the way. Forrest’s journey into belonging, and the music that made it possible, threw that absence into sharp relief.

At The Arch, the intimacy of the space reinforces rather than constrains the connection between performer and audience. Forrest transitions seamlessly between musician and storyteller, sometimes inserting narrative mid-song, never losing the thread. His emotional honesty never feels performed.

Forrest is a beautiful soul, drawing his audience in with warmth and gentle humour. The show ran to around seventy-five minutes rather than the advertised sixty – a consideration worth noting at a festival where audiences are often moving between venues on tight schedules. It is a small complaint against something genuinely rare: a show that makes you see, hear, and feel something you didn’t expect to.