It was great to be seeing our first play of the new year and even better when we heard it was going to be by Bruiser company, having enjoyed many shows from them over the years from The Colleen Bawn to 39 Steps.
Through their hilarious end-of-term play, three Year 11s exuberantly sketch the new drama teacher’s progress through two terms of recalcitrant classes, cynical colleagues, and obstructive caretakers. Disillusioned, he departs for the safe waters of a private school and leaves behind his students, whose youthful irreverence gives way to despair.
Right from the off we hurtle into 70 minutes of physical, fast, and clever comedy. The 3 leads flick between several different characters to tell the story of a play within a play, there’s quite a variety of characters do you need to pay attention to keep up.
Several lockers, blazers, chairs and the odd bunch of flowers pretty much make up the prop list and are thrown around in a way that would make a juggler blush, however through these meager objects they fill the stage and do well in filling in the dots and completing the picture.
The story tackles the issue surrounding the differences between state-funded and private schools and whilst touching on these issues rarely hammers the point across about the effect of this on the children involved.
Amazing performances by Nuala McGowan, Mary McGurk, and Chris Robinson are central to this, and despite being slightly older than the school kids they portray, have you believing every character they portray and carry the show with ease.
They manage to tow the fine line between comedy and drama and even tug at the heartstrings with their final lines in the play as they plead with their outgoing teacher not to leave.
After its run at The MAC (ending 10th Jan) it travels around the country taking in 8 NI theatres. For more details and tickets see here.
