8 hours ago
5
This is a textbook example of how to approach theatre for schools. Its new touring production, reaching 10,000 secondary students, finds the National Theatre firing on all cylinders with a gripping, often side-splitting adventure that is sensitive to serious themes yet never cringey.
Ross Willis has written a post-apocalyptic quest stuffed with quotable lines, a cult in the making that crackles with the split-second retorts and abundant soul of his 2022 play Wonder Boy. Ned Bennett directs with customary audacity, jolting the story forwards for the school-hall audience. Jessica Hung Han Yun (lighting) and Giles Thomas (sound) meld a lurid atmosphere for Georgia Lowe’s set and costumes, an extravagant fusion of wild west, sci-fi, ancient Rome and chivalric romance. Yet, cleverly, the props are mostly modified gadgets and cuddly toys recognisable to the audience (it’s recommended for over-12s).
In a blasted landscape, teenager Kit leads a ragtag group on the hunt for the scattered parts of an android she hopes, once reassembled, will reconnect her with her mother, played in intermittent voiceovers by Sharon D Clarke. Ryn Alleyne is excellent as the fiery Kit, grounding the story in emotion that offsets the production’s plentiful pulp stylings. There are quips here that would make John Carpenter proud.
This is the first professional theatre that many audience members will have seen, and Bennett’s in-the-round production references forms they may know better, including video games, blockbuster movies and graphic novels. Willis has always written next-level stage directions (from Wonder Boy: “100 eyeballs come out from the floorboards”) and one challenge for Bennett is that a character in Kit’s gang is a detached android arm. Francis Nunnery, dressed in skin-tight green with that limb in hot pink, has a wild time essentially operating his own hand as a puppet. There’s a real puppet, too, a plushy and super-cute blue critter designed, built and directed by Matt Hutchinson. Its outrageous flatulence proves essential to the plot. Did I mention the trash-talking, gun-toting baby in an outsized nappy? Or the audience interaction demanding we bellow lies?
Along the way Willis engages with issues of fear, friendship and the younger generation’s scorched inheritance, targeting an age range (Years 7-9) where the youngest and oldest can seem worlds apart. Perhaps it has a tad too much toilet humour in the mix, and the storytelling veers a little off course before the final showdown, but there’s a real sense of fun coming off everyone involved. Among the recent Lamda graduates in the cast, Tanaka Mpofu is hilarious.
The National’s recent 100% cut to its Primary Schools Touring theatre programme has been rightly criticised. Younger children, too, deserve this kind of rush in their school hall rather than being introduced to theatre through digital learning or a trip to a playhouse. Certainly, more people should get a chance to see The LeftBehinds: fingers crossed that, once the tour is over, this dystopian thriller has a glorious afterlife.
