UK Theatre Network

Arcola Theatre, arcolatheatre.com, 06-30 May 2009 8pm 02075031646

Cast: Lucy Ellison, Jeremy Killick, Victoria Pratt, Sandy Grierson

Harnessing the voyeuristic aspects of the media coverage in the aftermath of toddler Jamie Bulger’s murder, Niklas Rådström’s play constantly questions the audience’s reflexive reactions to the events that took place on 12 February 1993. Without giving the two 10 year old killers any overt sympathy, (brief segments of the police interviews are read out flatly, with different actors swapping roles for Jon Venables, Robert Thompson and their parents) the players shift from one perspective to another in order to get to the bottom of this brutal and senseless killing ‘by two children who killed a third’. Jamie (or James as his mother calls him) is not mentioned until the end as the child ‘who could be any child, who could be the child that we think of when we think of a child,’ seems at times little more than a refrain—a fact which the playwright throws back at us when in the end Jamie’s ‘mother’ talks of him not being mentioned—even being forgotten.

Considering the subject matter, it would be hard for the piece not to have a certain mawkish strain to it, (particularly because of the constant questions to the audience, ‘I don’t know why you came here, I don’t know what you expect to hear’) and at times, I found that the frenetic pace and jarring light bulb pops left me unable to savour the poignancy of the text. A sensitive cast take you through the piece, but, because they are all interchangeable members of a ‘chorus’ at times I felt we were not given as broad a glimpse into the characters lives as we might have been. Nonetheless there were some particularly moving moments, such as when the Chorus Leader (played by Jeremy Killick) calls a halt to proceedings with the line ‘Wait. Hold it. Don’t let what’s already happened happen already.’ There follows a brief and gorgeous descriptive monologue from Victoria Pratt about the night before the killing.

‘…A bike tossed to the ground by the phone booth:

the back wheel spins, it has been spinning all night

As if on an endless outing among the stars.

On the wood fence along Winter Street someone has sprayed:

I come from the future and it’s already over’

Is this production a little too cold and frenetic to really make an impact? With a brave cast and clever construction this piece is challenging and asks uncomfortable questions about the nature of evil. The writing can be devastating in its effectiveness, and when the actors get a chance to shine they are excellent, with Lucy Ellison and Killick particularly worthy of note. Not enjoyable exactly, then, but a sharp, intelligent look at a very difficult subject.