Punk Rock
Lyric Hammersmith
Judgment Day
Almeida
In rolls another bandwagon. And who’s that on board? It’s Simon Stephens, the playwright and panic profiteer, who likes to cadge a ride from any passing controversy. His latest play is about a teenage psycho who enacts a gory shoot-out at his local school. What a strange choice. Stephens frets vociferously in the programme notes about Britain’s ‘distrust’ and ‘marginalisation’ of its youngsters. With an episcopal air, and a peculiar turn of phrase, he asserts his ‘continuing faith’ in the young. ‘They get stuff. Sometimes they may lack the vocabulary always to articulate that which they understand but I have faith that they often understand it.’ (He used to be a teacher. A pity the children didn’t drum any grammar into him.)
As soon as the play begins, so do Stephens’s woes.
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