HEY THERE, BOY WITH THE BEBOP. To 13 March.

Young People

HEY THERE, BOY WITH THE BEBOP
by Abi Bown

Polka Theatre 24 February-13 March 2004
Thu-Fri 7pm Sat 2pm, 5.30pm (not 13 March)
Also schools performances Tue-Fri
Runs 1hr35min One interval

TICKETS: 020 8543 4888
www.polkateens.com
Review: Timothy Ramsden 13 February

Keen direction and fine acting in a play speaking direct to youthful experience mark a promising start for the new Polka Teens' project.They're going to have to change the signs on the toilet doors now Polka's taken to producing for 12-16s. Those bright playful Boy and Girl door-pics don't carry the cred. up the age-range

Unlike Abi Bown's new play, with Kully Thiarai's wised-up direction. From the opening street-montage, cool types to comic oldster (though he emerges with dignity later), it gets interest, speaking straight to teen attention.

Our street, Chantaye tells us, takes half-an-hour to travel. It's not long, just full of hazards, believable from Marise Rose's graffiti-speckled set. Parents which means mothers aren't known by name here, only as attachments to their kids. In particular, Chantaye, with a mum whose mouth's an angry pneumatic drill, and housebound Leo, cruelly dubbed Mad Elvis' by such as Trixie and Gary. He's from the south, and this is Liverpyule, so no mercy's shown. Green shutters and wibbly-wobbly' door-glass mark the family out as posh. Worse, Leo's music - it used to be his dance too is forties jazz.

Bown's play shows Chantaye moving from her friends' prejudiced view of Leo to knowing him for real, his music, degenerative mobility and synaesthesia (perceiving one sense in terms of another, so sounds have colours etc). No sooner is she seen jiving with Leo than her friends redouble their attack, adding her to their scorn a literal barrier goes up, a concrete block with insulting graffiti raised across the stage.

There's strong acting among the central youth quartet, seeing the play through its less dynamic moments, up to the action's quite sudden halt. The difficult transition from conflict to (harder to handle) understanding is carried by the performances, though the break from toughness to tears is difficult for even Kate Crossley's fine-detailed Trixie to make convincing.

Key to it all is Ebony Feare's superb Chantaye, who discovers more about herself in finding a new sympathy with the unknown, rumour-victim neighbour (there are some dark choric whispers at times). Energy and intelligence play through this performance, in her talk to others, to the audience and when her dancing with him brings joy to the partially-mobile Leo.

Leo: Adam Moore
Chantaye: Ebony Feare
Trixie: Kate Crossley
Gary: Keith Saha
Leo's Mum: Karen Spicer
Chantaye's Mum: Helen Flooks
Lad: Ben Stevenson

Director: Kully Thiarai
Designer: Marise Rose
Lighting: Ciaran Bagnall
Composer: Julian Butler
Choreographer: Donald Edwards

2004-02-16 10:19:48