An Astar Performance

On Thursday I took a trip down memory lane as I went back to my old school, Woodroffe, in Lyme Regis to watch the Alevel drama performance. And I was not disappointed.

I sat in the diverse audience, which consisted of family, friends, teachers and general theatre lovers and picked up a programme. This nice little touch showed me the actresses and who they were playing , gave me a brief description of the play’s story. This idea made for an easier watch for some of the members who would have found the plot a bit too complex, therefore stopping the annoying whisper of questions being thrown around the auditorium. These individual programmes made the entire experience more personal for everyone watching.  They explained that Anthony Horrowitz wrote the script as part of the National Youth Theatre Connections. This is a recent agenda in which ten playwrights create completely new, short plays for different companies to perform across the country these are then shortlisted to one performance of each play at the National Youth Theatre. A creditable prize.

I spoke to a few people in the audience afterwards and had such good reviews from them all. One woman said, ‘I wasn’t expecting such a good piece and to think they are only seventeen.’ Whilst an elderly man told us ‘I believed in every character and almost shed a tear for poor little Rose.’ Jeremy, a seventeen year old said ‘ A five star from me.’

The plot is about a group of young people rehearsing “The Importance of Being Ernest” by Oscar Wilde, but as they attempt to perform a play which is unfamiliar to them, it becomes apparent that their surroundings are not so normal of teenage girls. Tensions mount resulting in arguments between them, and so each person’s story starts to emerge. The location is then shown to be an institution for young offenders.

This hidden setting is hinted throughout by the boilers suit costumes and ‘Anger management’ posters stuck around the stage. Adding to these, are the cleverly delivered lines that suggest the girls aren’t so sweet and innocent, ‘Well none of my family are around now, are they?!’  There are, of course, the stereotypical characters that create most storylines, these consist of ; Georgie, the bossy leader, Specs the geek, Irene the hard nut, Kinsey the dumb one, Rose the shy, childish one and Ali the mediator. These characteristics do the job of keeping in with the audiences expectations, whilst their individual twists and mysteries of how they arrived there make for an active audience.

Georgie’s actor, Jess Rogers did well to keep the group in line with her high volume and low tone, whilst her fierce gaze kept the other characters in a lower status. Although she was sometimes challenged by Grace Keeler,  who played Irene and was covered in tattoos and piercing this intimidating look was mirrored by her thick Glaswegian accent (a hard skill to acquire).

However these powerfully persuasive actors were let down by the character of Rose who I imagined was meant to have a child like mind, but this was lost with her wishy washy lines that came across as a mumble. She constantly came out of character which made it her part of the story highly difficult to keep up with as the audience couldn’t understand anything she was saying let alone how it was supposed to be interpreted.  Thankfully the hilarious specs, played by Karly Buckley made up for it with her incontinent stuttering and slapstick glasses.

For a group of seventeen year olds, these students did well to capture the uniqueness of each character and in fact the playwright’s question, ‘Can a child ever be considered evil?’  If only the piece was longer to really evaluate each characters situation. I felt I left the auditorium with many questions unanswered, something that is good for stimulating the mind unless of course you need to have a more direct ending. In which case you should go see something a little more panto.