7 hours ago
5
The audience enters through a graffitied tunnel at one corner of the foyer. Inside, the auditorium is a life-size skate-park. It is a feat of set design by Rebecca Brower and tremendously atmospheric. The play is a blast of freshness, too. Written by local emerging talent Samson Hawkins, it is a dark comedy about toxic masculinity and the lure of misogynistic online influencer culture for young men struggling to find their place in the world. In this case, it is 18-year-old Aidan (Daniel Rainford) who is languishing in low-paid jobs and feeling powerless while his secretly adored friend, Mia (Fanta Barrie), prepares for university and begins a romance with the taller, richer Charlie (Finn Samuels).
At its centre is an Andrew Tate-style alpha misogynist turned social media svengali, Hugo Bang (Danny Hatchard, of EastEnders fame). Dressed devilishly in a slick red suit, he emerges from among the snippets of social media that Aidan scrolls past, and which are dramatised, but slowly begins to gain his attention until he is in nose-to-nose dialogue with Aidan.
The script weaves together themes of class, male mental health, teen anxiety and sexual assault. It bears some echoes of Jack Thorne’s Adolescence, although dark humour is deployed here, and not every issue is probed in quite enough depth.
But it makes its point, and becomes gradually creepy. Exuberantly directed by Jesse Jones, TikTok-type videos are enacted on stage, popping up and disappearing with every swipe of Aidan’s fingers. They feature wrestlers, wellness gurus, incels, a rapping “Queen Liz” (with Philip as her baby daddy) and an ensemble dancing to Lisa’s Money, Taylor Swift’s The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived, and more. It produces a hallucinatory effect, with lighting (designed by Rory Beaton) and sound (by Benjamin Grant) that bring drama and satirical wit.
Some characters are too roughly drawn, such as Charlie, who veers on rugger-bugger cliche, and local alcoholic Dave (David Schaal from TV’s The Inbetweeners). The plot is a little clunky and moral lessons are pronounced but this does not detract from the play’s blaze of good ideas and spirited performances.
Just this week, the National Theatre’s director, Indhu Rubasingham, spoke of the dearth of new writing and warned against risk-averse theatre-making in a public lecture. This production, which features a host of young performers including a chorus of 25 University of Northampton acting students, reflects a commitment to the nurturing of new talent and feels courageous for it.
