White Boy

Jane Edwardes, Mon Aug 20

The National Youth Theatre is in cracking form in a new, very topical piece by Tanika Gupta which must surely have been influenced by the death of the promising footballer Kiyan Prince, stabbed by a Somali refugee. None of the actors, I hope, has actually witnessed such an event but there’s an authority about their performances as if they know they can bring something to this production that professional actors couldn’t. The hour-long play is billed as exploring what it means to be a white boy in Britain today. It’s no surprise that the racist bullies are those who feel most inadequate and have suffered from bullies themselves. Tempers explode when Flips, who is a white lout known to the social services (‘it’s like having a personal trainer’), is rejected by Venetia Campbell’s Zara, a black girl he surprisingly wants to go out with. He is also terrorising a Somali refugee, who owes him money.

Gupta’s plot is a bit pat, but there’s nothing contrived about the emotions she arouses. Everyone looks up to Obi Iwumene’s Victor, a schoolboy hero with the possibility of a glamorous football career ahead of him. His white friend Ricky copies his every intonation and much prefers Victor’s welcoming home to his own. While Roy Williams’ play ‘Lift Off’ concentrates on the way that white boys race ahead of black boys once they leave school, Luke Norris’s Ricky has low expectations of his future.

Juliet Knight’s production is highly stylised. Sometimes irritatingly so when the actors have a gesture to match every word. But the movement also gives the play its punch especially when the lethal fight is performed in slow motion. More than an exploration of white identity, what comes through most strongly is that some kids will always find a reason to beat each other up – all the more reason to make sure that guns and knives are hard to find.

Time Out ****