CityLife

Days of Significance

Days Of Significance
The Lowry
November 24, 2009

AS much about the plight of British youth at home as about a war that no one wants and even fewer understand, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s contemporary shocker is an indictment of a society where young people are caught up in a state of violence and vulgarity.

Commissioned from award-winning writer Roy Williams, Days Of Significance – fulfilling one of the company’s principles that classics must interact with contemporary drama – is based very loosely on Much Ado About Nothing. But don’t let that worry you.

Young soldiers Ben (Toby Wharton) and Jamie (George Rainsford) are on the cusp of being despatched to Basra and they’re out on a bender with their mates and Trish (Sarah Ridgeway) and Hannah (Joanna Horton).

Energetic

In a graphic half hour of booze-sodden, foul-mouthed exchanges, vomiting, urinating and fighting, relationships between the lads and girls are established. It’s the sex war of Much Ado with a contemporary and all too-truthful take – see any town centre any weekend. But there are glimpses of disillusion and desperation, hinting that the youngsters still have their humanity.

In the second of the three acts, we are in Iraq. In a bloody and confused incident, Ben has fired on a child and now he and Jamie are holed up with another squaddie and a dying black sergeant. Act three returns to Britain, where Jamie is ostracised at a wedding celebration. Incriminating photos of soldiers in Iraq have appeared and Jamie is due in court. Meanwhile, his mates party on like there is no tomorrow.

The play asks how a generation of binge-drinking white trash could possibly be equipped to sort anarchy abroad?

The performances are sharp and energetic, the direction likewise. But I watched it with a fair amount of detachment, rather than getting caught up in it, it isn’t emotionally involving. But there’s plenty to argue about on the way home.

Until Saturday, November 28, 2009.

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