Fresh Air

I was delighted to review another of this young cast’s involvement in the National Theatre’s Connections festival. Well done for getting to the London event last year.

What an atmospheric stage setting with lights and sound effects. I was immediately hooked and was eager to see the performance. I was not disappointed! Strong performances from all and the range of emotion acted out during this play was spot on. We had anger, upset, confusion, bullying, fear and acceptance to name a few. The engagement with the characters they were playing was good and despite a few prompts all showed real promise.

This play has two casts and they are basically ghosts of children from the 1920’s who had died from Tuberculosis and a group of children who attend an Offsite education service for a variety of reasons. All the action is centred in a haunted wood near Dundee. We see the ghosts in all their blood stained glory during the interaction between the other children and the special effects worked, the use of lighting was clever. The play gives scope for thoughtful direction and was well done allowing the issues to be highlighted. Although some of the characters are not immediately likeable all is resolved in the end and the children of today come out of the woods with more understanding of the needs of others. Well done again to this young cast, you worked well together and provided us with a spine chilling experience. Can I suggest you all work on your voice projection as this would allow the audience to appreciate your work even more. Congratulations to all involved on the production side.

Good luck at Pitlochry I am sure you will do well.

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