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A CurtainUp 
London Review
London ReviewPunk Rock
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The fur trade’s abominable. People who wear fur coats should be skinned alive in my opinion.— William
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Jessica Raine as Lilly and Tom Sturridge as William (Photo: Helen Maybanks) |
It is the first term of their last year at school with mock interviews preparing them for university entrance and mock A level examinations pending. The scholastic tensions are there as well as the usual teenage insecurities about sexuality and experiments with alcohol. Punk Rock is a difficult play to review without spoiling the shock factor of the violent outcome for a future audience so I have to skirt around the issues that drive Stephens’ play. Suffice it to say that it is very well written, directed and credible.
The dialogue is accurate and exact, natural and vital and often very funny as these bright young things verbally spar. I found the character of Bennett despicable with his destructive ridicule of the others and vicious arrogance. I wanted someone to stand up to him and Chadwick delivers a wonderful speech prophesying the end of the world, putting Bennett into perspective. William asks Lilly out but is knocked back by her, he is unaware that she and Nicholas have been sexually active from her first week at the school. From this point William spirals down, drinking at school, behaving oddly and missing exams. Cissy’s mortification when she gets a ‘B’ for English is revealing as a spoilt child.
The performances are of the very finest. Jessica Raine was in Harper Regan and Gethsemane at the National and is surely a future star, seen here as Lilly, interesting and bright but selfish and cruel as well as insecure. As Lilly talks about sex, flirting with Nicholas, the director Sarah Frankcom has her eating an apple which she takes a bite out of but spits out in a symbolic moment of provocative teasing. Tom Sturridge, as William, making his professional stage debut, and what a debut, is likeable if slightly strange with his odd ruffled hairstyle which Lilly calls shy hair.
The set is a grand and soaring Gothic Upper School Library, quite magnificent, a place where the sixth form can meet to talk undisturbed. Here William offers to show Lilly a second edition of Walter Scott’s Waverley stored on the higher stack. In between scenes there is contemporary rock, edgy and raucous.
Simon Stephens has written a great play that I should be quite happy to see again. The dialogue has wit and more as it reveals the pain of the transition into an uncertain adulthood. I can see Punk Rock being studied by future generations of ‘A’ level students.
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| Punk Rock
Written by Simon Stephens Directed by Sarak Frankcom Starring: Jessica Raine, Tom Sturridge With: Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Sophie Wu, Katie West, Nicholas Banks, Harry McEntire, Ghazaleh Golpira, Simon Wolfe Design: Paul Wills Lighting: Philip Gladwell Sound: Pete Rice Fight and movement: Mike Ashcroft Running time: One hour 50 minutes with no interval Box Office: 0871 22 117 22 Booking to 26th September 2009 at the Lyric Hammersmith, then 7th to 31st October at the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on 9th September 2009 performance at the Lyric Hammersmith, King Street, London W6 (Tube: Hammersmith) |
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