Until They Kick Us Out – YEP at Liverpool Everyman Theatre – 26/02/2015

I'm Satire - or, if you didn’t get your English GCSE, Taking the Piss…

Last year Young Everyman Playhouse stormed the new Everyman stage and took possession of the space with “The Grid”. This week they continue their path to world domination by forming their own political party, for which Until They Kick Us Out stands as a manifesto.

In last night’s post-show debate it became clear that, when you get them to really think about it, people in general – young and old alike – are not so much disengaged with politics as with politicians and the parties they represent - they’re all the same, and they’re all rubbish. How then do you convince someone who’s turning 18 that it’s worth registering and casting their vote when faced with the rhetoric and in-fighting that characterises the run up to an election?

This 90 minute show has grown out of extensive discussions YEP members have had about what politics does and doesn’t mean to them. Often theatre devised and developed this way can become episodic but YEP, under the direction of Matt Rutter and Chris Tomlinson, have woven their stories into a tapestry in which a very clear picture emerges. The performers have dug deep and uncovered individual experiences, sometimes funny, often painful but always telling, that enable them to connect the personal with the global.

These personal experiences punctuate and inform a narrative in which, scene by scene, the case for engaging with the political debate and making your vote count is powerfully made. Until They Kick Us Out injects the often dry subject of politics with YEP’s inimitable energy and makes for a genuinely thrilling piece of theatre.

The 33 listed performers appear as a chorus, and it is impossible to credit them individually, but there are a great many stand-out performances, and everyone will leave the theatre with a personal list of faces they will be looking out for in future.

There are some very witty scenes as the chorus explore political history and education, particularly in an almost Pythonesque mockery of the suffragette movement, and the use of strong movement and music has particular effect as the show builds to its defiant conclusion.

Special mention must go to the movement director Grace Goulding, who has choreographed the piece like a well-oiled machine, and to the team of YEP technicians for their high-impact sound and lighting work.

Until They Kick Us Out is guaranteed to deliver the tingle factor and to leave you wanting more, but hurry – it closes on Saturday night.

Postscript: UTKUO revives for 3 more performances on 28, 29 and 30 April in the run up to the election, which sees a cast member stand for the Wavertree constituency.

(N.B. This review is also published at seenliverpool.com)

Photo (c) Brian Roberts

Cartoonopolis - Lewis Bray - Liverpool Playhouse Studio - 22/10/2014

Lewis Bray presented us with a short extract of Cartoonopolis earlier in the year and since then I have been looking forward to the appearance of the longer work…  I was not disappointed.

Lewis has a teenage brother Jack, who has autism and although like the rest of his family he is from the Wirral, Jack speaks with an American accent learned through his love of cartoons. He has built his own world inhabited with these characters, some familiar to us and some created through his own rich imagination.

In Cartoonopolis Jack is Mayor Bray, and he calls the tune. The central section of the play sees a battle between the forces of good and evil in his realm. Surrounding this we see the back story, experiencing Jack’s world through the experience of Lewis and the rest of the family.

What Lewis does is give his brother a voice and has us understand him the way his family do. In doing so he has created a work filled with astonishing frankness and tremendously affectionate humour. He manages to expose many of their difficulties and frustrations, often caused by the misunderstanding of others or lack of cooperation or support, but he never allows it to become protest or posturing.

We are left wanting to cross the border into Cartoonopolis with Jack, and to experience his world the way that Lewis seems to be able to do.

Lewis Bray is a tremendously talented improviser with a terrific ability to flip back and forth between numerous characters, both real and imaginary. Early on, as he first depicts his mother, he throws us an aside to the effect that she’ll kill him when she sees this, but I strongly suspect that she will find the characterisation as affectionately humorous as we do.

Cartoonopolis is written and performed by Lewis Bray, directed by Matt Rutter and Chris Tomlinson and was lit by Christina Eddowes. If, as Matt Rutter tells us, this was a scratch performance then audiences are really in for a treat when it returns in February.