Our Day Out

This play written by Willy Russell is about a school trip to Conwy Castle in Wales from a poor area remedial class of a school in Liverpool. The teacher leading the trip is a liberal teacher who is frowned upon by some of the other teachers in the school.

The set consisted of boxes which formed various scene changes (seats on the bus, a wall etc).  The direction by Michael Jones McCaw had been well thought through and kept quite a pace. The lighting worked well and the performers projected well. The props and costumes suited the characters well. 

These young actors only have a few weeks to put their pieces together which stretched their abilities but they always rise to the challenge and this production was no exception. Characterisation was good, delivery too in the main and with lots of inexperienced cast members they all pulled together to create a lovely piece of theatre.

Mrs Kay was played by Elena Burrows who had a nice style of delivery and came across as the sort of teacher that kids love but often take advantage of as she was so nice. Her diction was clear and she delivered her lines very naturally.

Kit Fullman as Mr Briggs had a harder job as the arc of change his character goes through is huge in this piece. Kit delivered well especially as the strict, unlikeable even troubled teacher who initially comes across as a bit of a sneak but who shows a softer side as the play draws to a conclusion. A nice performance Kit.

Susan and Colin were other teachers who were helping Mrs Kay on the trip and were played well by Aimee Chapman and Sam Lutrell-Henshaw. Aimee had a nice demeanour as Susan despite being concerned about crushes, love interests and bad behaviour of the pupils in her care. Sam portrayed Colin well and delivered his dialogue with conviction.

Jack Morris played multiple parts and portrayed some good characterisation in each part played. The rest of the cast played pupils who for most of the play were challenging to say the least. 

Carol the class tart was very well performed by Abby Bardsley who showed a sassy side that was great for this role. George Devlin was great as the older bullying Reilly who took Ben Hadfield as Digga as his sidekick. The two tried to bully the other kids and acted up at every opportunity. 

The rest of the cast portrayed nice characterisations for their parts and I particularly liked the bored girls played by Amber Butterworth, Lucy Morris Milton and Louisa Dolan. 

The Liverpool accents had been well worked on and some found these easier than others but overall a good attempt was made by all the characters who needed them. The play was a very nice and creative piece of theatre that continues to stretch these young people. The production team help mould the characters beautifully and stretch the performers with pieces that require depth of understanding and empathy of the characters involved. A very different piece to the last couple of years but one I think allowed more comedy and therefore different opportunities to the cast.

Thank you for the invitation and keep stretching yourselves.

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