Tom Green

Last night was the first Scene & Heard show I've been too... and one of the most enjoyable nights I've spent at the theatre for a long time.

Scene & Heard is:

"...a unique mentoring project that partners the inner-city children of Somers Town, London with volunteer theatre professionals, providing each child who participates with quality one-on-one adult attention and an experience of personal success through the process of writing and performing plays. "

Last night's plays were written by 9-11 year-olds and they were all brilliant. The Scene & Heard team had obviously done a great job helping them to develop and structure their ideas but the results were very much the product of the children's imagination (and not a word, we were told, had been changed).

Some of my favourite lines:
"Jam your hype" (from Missing Love by Osman Jallah, aged 9)
"I could kiss you...but you're a toilet" (from The Poison Of The Plan by Yaaseen Khalique, aged 10)
"My name's Dave and I'm the solar system. I work as a chef." (from Solar Cam by Tasmin Aktar, aged 10)
"It's a long story...but I'll still tell you."(from Weather Control by Suban Abdirahman, aged 9)

What was so wonderful was seeing the characters and situations the young writers created being realised with such complete conviction by professional actors. Funny, touching and great theatre.

Every child should have an opportunity to do something like this.

Strange how many plays I've seen in the past year or so that involve people being locked into their own homes. Relocated; The Walworth Farce; The New Electric Ballroom. And now Tusk Tusk by Polly Stenham.

Relocated was very obviously influenced by the Josef Fritzl case (though the Enda Walsh play pre-date it) and I wonder if Stenham was, too. For though her child characters aren't literally captive in their new flat, their mother is missing and they know that, if found, they will be put into care. There's also a basement...

It's a powerful, entertaining and very sad play about how children try to survive parental neglect but are ultimately bound to suffer. Great seeing it in the Royal COurt Theatre Upstairs, so close to the action, and with one of the youngest audiences I've ever seen - the majority must have been late teens or early twenties.

I didn't realise until after I'd seen it that The New Electric Ballroom preceded The Walworth Farce.

The two plays by Enda Walsh share a premise about people trapped in their own homes, but the earlier piece, set in Ireland, doesn't, for me, quite live up to the latter.

There is some brilliant writing - the fisherman's monologues are particularly stunning - but I found the reliance on monologue slightly limiting.

Then again, perhaps it just suffers in comparison to The Walworth Farce which was one of the best plays I've seen for a very long time and full of drama.

Ballroom was more like a poem, in some respects. It reminded me of Under Milk Wood. Dark, lyrical, funny, sexy and full of the vivid life of a fishing village. 

I loved the audacity of this - a whole orchestra on stage! - and I loved the way that Stoppard integrates the orchestra into his play so effortlessly. It's playful, clever, funny and moving. 

Ecstatically received by the second house of the evening (it only runs 65 minutes). So full marks to the National for innovative programming following on from the short Pinter plays last year.

Perhaps some shorter new plays could be tried at the Cottesloe; as double-bills if necessary. I think several new works have suffered in recent years from over-stretch and would have been more successful cut down to around 70-90 minutes.

Not an all together successful 65-minutes of Pinter - more, I think, because of the venue (too much space in the Lyttleton for such a claustrophobic play) and the performance of Simon Russell Beale than because of the play itself.

Some people have suggested that it's better as a radio play (as originally intended) but I'm not so sure. It's classic  Pinter - a domestic setting into which ever-more menacing elements of threat and emotional instability are introduced.

I just didn't believe in Russell Beale. He was too naturalistic, somehow. And, though I felt he was trying not to be - still too ironic. Not enough menace. I kept imagining how Pinter would have played the role himself.

Clearly, acting in Pinter is a real test. You have to be spot on with everything, I think, or it just seems odd. Claire Higgins was exceptionally good - making the transition from tame 1950s housewife to some sort of sexual predator completely convincing.

Interesting how similar the play is to The City - right down to the identity swap at the end. Given that A Slight Ache was written 50 years ago, and Martin Crimp is considered one of the current avant garde, it just shows how long Pinter's shadow is.

Endnote: two lines in particular made me laugh out loud. The first (Edward: Horseflies suck) probably depends on context. The second (Flora: We'll call the police. Or the vicar) doesn't.

Notes on the use of pre-show music - part 3: Black Watch by Gregory Burke (currently at the Barbican) is preceded by very loud pipe and drums and sweeping spotlights - apeing a military tattoo. It worked for me, but, when the show started by immediately going into another sound effect, I  found myself wishing there had been a nice long silence during which I could have slipped into the world of the play. Silence is at the heart of theatre (even in a show as ear-bleedingly loud as this) and, given the chance, pre-show music can actually emphasise it. Great bagpiping near the end, though.