There’s that one summer where hopscotch gets left behind, the football gathers dust in the corner and when exploring sexuality or alcohol become way more important than school exams. In Mayford Road’s production of D C Jackson’splay The Wall acrobatic verbal dissent between four teenagers breaks up the syrup of summer holiday boredom, and a wall, somewhere in a small Scottish town, becomes the scene for a tender look at adolescent turmoil.
A group of loquacious teenagers wittily discussing their crushes and their view on the world could easily turn into a tedium extraordinaire were it not for something more substantial hiding between the lines. Assumptions and secrets are the foundation of the union between 15-year old Michelle and 17-year old Barry. Ben Lambert turns Barry into a lanky and thoughtful guy, who is just that little bit too serious. Isla Coulter’s demanding but equally awkward Michelle has decided that he’s perfect for that bit of summer loving she’s looking for. Then, there is Barry’s younger sister Norma who works herself into a frenzy over a bit of hash she has nicked from their father. Roslyn Paterson laces a droll innocence into the immediacy of teenage angst; her wry and literal interplay with big mouth Rab (Corran Royle) is a joy to watch. He is the bam philosopher who has an opinion on everything but is himself too shy to act on his infatuation with another neighbour’s girl.
As if that weren’t enough, all of them have to face the fact that they are slightly screwed up by their parents’ neuroses. They inadvertently carry around with them the older generation’s baggage which is full of the same anxieties and padded with personal and political disillusionment. The undergrowth of parental failures is breaking up the conservative lid that was put on in the 80s and is now showing in the confusion of the children. When the story turns a familiar shade and exposes a big hidden secret, it does so without patronising the audience. They can keep up; D C Jackson knows. The plot unfolds in a traditional manner but we’re not here for that. We’re here for the microwave of adolescent emotions completely untainted by adult commentary or judgement.
It’s like a flip side to April de Angelis’ Jumpy, which deals with the fallout of a teenage pregnancy. Here the focus is entirely on the disillusioned parent, who judges the aberrant child and inflates both their failures as some kind of tragic-comic, inevitable tragedy of modern urban life. When drugs, alcohol, and sex are in the same context as children, it’s common to move into bleak social criticism that punishes the loss of morals with criminalisation or at least damnation of the involved parties. The Wall creates a world in which children testing the waters of who they are, allows them to remain innocent. Under David Ricardo-Pearce’s direction, not the threat of ASBOs but wafts of Regina Spektor and precocious self-awareness carry this refreshing twist on social commentary through to the end.