Matthew Whittet’s play, which premiered in Australia and is now reproduced with an entirely British cast, deploys veteran actors in the roles of children and inevitably evokes memories of Dennis Potter’s Blue Remembered Hills. The play wins one over by its sharp understanding of what it is like to be a confused, bewildered teenager.
At first, it seems all too familiar. The setting is a park playground, where a gang of friends gather to celebrate the end of exams and their school careers. Their relationships fall into standard patterns. The noisy, raucous Mike effortlessly dominates the more timorous, thoughtful Tom. Similarly, the vivacious Jess, who is Mike’s girlfriend, holds sway over her chum Emilia, whom she calls “the frigid princess”. The group is joined by two unwanted hangers-on in the shape of the desolate, unloved Ronny and Mike’s pert younger sister, Lizzy.
Adolescent angst has been much explored, not least in Simon Stephens’s Punk Rock, which memorably dealt with lurking violence in a Stockport school. Under the routine booze and banter, Whittet’s play gradually grips through its revelation not just of the insecurity but of the buried emotions of these partying teenagers. Mike’s coarse, foul-mouthed swagger is seen to be a mask for his sexual uncertainty. His girlfriend Jess, who seems to sail easily through life, is shown to be in thrall to a sick mother and possibly destined for a dead-end career. As friendships are fractured and new alliances formed, Whittet captures the sense that this is a pivotal moment in all these young lives.
It is the casting, however, that gives the play its original twist. Older actors bring to it their own life experience and invest it with an extra layer of hope and sadness. Anne-Louise Sarks’s production, played on Tom Scutt’s serpentine slides and swings, also strikes the ideal balance between imitation of the freewheeling exuberance of youth and intimations of the future that faces these carousing teens.
Michael Feast as Mike seems the archetypal cocksure young show-off, but there is a manic quality to his behaviour that hints at deep unhappiness. Roger Sloman as Tom is equally persuasive as the perpetual sidekick who nurses unresolved longings of his own. The women are even more deftly drawn. Diana Hardcastle plays Jess as a sparky, bright-eyed charmer who craves the consoling friendship of the more level-headed Emilia, whom Margot Leicester endows with a perfect quality of irritated reliability; praised for her warm-hearted loyalty, Leicester protests: “I sound like a fucking Alsatian.” Sarah Ball is no less good as Mike’s protective sibling, but the outstanding moment comes when Mike Grady as Ronny opens up to reveal the tragic history of the perennial outsider.
The initial sense of deja vu leads to a play that taps into our collective memories of the pains of youth.
• At Lyric Hammersmith, London, until 8 April. Box office: 020-8741 6850.
