Review: Yen, Royal Exchange, Wednesday 18th February 2015

Normally when you walk out at an interval it’s a fairly clear indicator that Breaking Bad and eating Nutella in your jammies is a far superior alternative than another hour of a seat in a dark room.

Not in this case.

Happily musing my love of ‘open endings’ on my skip exitward I discovered that there was a whole bonus second half of the Bruntwood Prize winning Yen to come. And, in all honesty, sod what people have said about my ignorant near walk-out being a heinous indictment on the play as a whole, the fact that the first half had me deep in thought and saturated with theatrical glee (something many a 'full' play fails to bag) is testament to just how bloody good this production is.

tells the story of two teenage brothers left to fend for themselves and their dog in a squalid flat in Feltham, Performances that could easily be grating and overbaked (alcoholic absent mother, animal loving teenage girl and malnourished trakkie bottom-wearing sweary youths) are played out with brutal honesty, no stain hidden. Sharp dialogue and gritty delivery tosses you from hilarity to despair with each passing second and an empty stage populated by a grotty sofa-bed is filled with the turbulence of first love; the monotony of a seven hour Playstation marathon and a tragic childhood where nicked charity shop clothes and chicken nuggets for tea are considered luxuries. 

All this before a horrific twist in the second half. (Make sure you don’t leave).

It was busy on the first night, and it's Manchester so word will get out. This is a seat in a dark room you'll want to get your bum on. 4/5

Review: 'Three Birds', Bush Theatre, 23rd March 2013

To be fair, if the play kicked off two minutes ago and a teenage girl has already decapitated a chicken, even before a boy has lurched towards it with a syringe you can make the solid assumption that you’re watching something a little out of the ordinary, be that for better or worse. Fortunately Janice Okoh’s Bruntswood Prize winning play veers towards the former as it continues its run at the Bush Theatre after its premiere last month at Manchester’s Royal Exchange.

The story follows the lives of 16 year old Tiana, 13 year old Tionne and 9 year old Tanika from their sparsely decorated living room on an anonymous Lewisham estate, Mother Jackie is nowhere to be seen. Listening to the delusional aspirations of elder-sister Tiana, one can guess that these young people barely venture far from these four walls and that their lives are inevitably made more difficult by the fact that they were born within them.  There’s no doubt, we’ve returned to the kitchen sink, only this time there’s a little girl taking a dump in it.

Three Birds features an immense performance from Susan Wakoma as 9 year old Tanika, whose incessant childish chatter is simultaneously hilarious and heartbreaking, never once plopping into grating over-exaggeration. Lee Oakes also stands out as the curiously eloquent neighbourhood dealer, though Ms Jenkins (Claire Brown), the manic, politically correct school-teacher idolised by Tanika, is an addition that is perhaps a tad cartoonish at times. Darkly humorous and unsettling, you may see the end coming, but you’ll be waiting on edge for someone to say it out loud. 4/5