SH*T-M*X. To 25 October.

London.

SH*T-M*X
by Leo Richardson

Trafalgar Studios (Studio 2) To 25 October 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Thu & Sat 3pm
Runs 2hr 15min One interval.

TICKETS: 0870 060 6632.
www.theambassadors.com/trafalgar studios
Review: Timothy Ramsden 11 October.

The pains of youth with a barrel of laughs.
This isn’t the first theatrical dispatch from south London. But it’s one from the Deep South, so much so it’s almost Surrey. Actually, it’s Stanley Park in the London Borough of Sutton. And young playwright Leo Richardson might have created a new locale for a sitcom, namely the park-bench, with its grass and gravel surrounds reaching out to the audience in Kerry Bradley’s realistic design, backed by local images.

For Richardson has a fine line in comedy and the cast in Samantha Potter’s production for theatre company CurvingRoad seem so exactly right for their parts you might wonder which came first, cast or script. Writing and, even more, performances catch the interactions between teenagers, and their expression in ‘Youth’ English, half-comprehensible to tribal outsiders.

These are people who send Dirty Debbie, a year older than the main trio, to buy the booze. They’re not dispossessed or angry; they don’t even vandalise the bench or its surrounds. They’re still expected home, though they don’t all always go. The tribe is the new family in which they’re finding out about themselves as individuals, even if they’re not fully aware that’s what they’re doing.

In the play’s very funny world, any barbs in the typecasting nicknames are soothed by a tolerant friendship, from Annie who hides in her body-cloaking clothes till budding into a final dress, or Ben who acts camp naturally unless he remembers to throw in a butch gesture or two and talk of a girlfriend. Aimee-Ffion Edwards and Steven Webb have technical flair, Edwards especially giving a sharp sense of character.

Adult concerns are merely reported, reminders of a tougher world beyond the young people’s circle, or their glamorous self-images suggested in choreographed musical sequences. And that world intrudes with LB’s older brother Harry, first seen as the fantasy figure of adolescent desire, but who introduces in reality a violence arising from the rejection he’s faced elsewhere.

Richardson develops his serious theme carefully through the comedy. There’s room, though, to take the idea further than it goes; there’s a lot of similarity within the scenes. Still, a promising debut.

Raggedy Anne: Aimee-Ffion Edwards.
LB (Lonely Boy): Leo Richardson.
Dirty Debbie: Cassie Atkinson.
Bent Ben: Steven Webb.
Harry the Hottie: Jay Taylor.

Director: Samantha Potter.
Designer: Kerry Bradley.
Lighting: Natasha Chivers.
Sound: Steve Mayo.
Choreographer/Movement Director: Georgia Gasson.
Voice coach: Emma Rogers.
Fight director: David Broughton-Davies.
Assistant director: Ellie Joseph.

2008-10-12 23:42:13