Junkyard

[paplazaroo]

New musical in Bristol from Headlong written by Shakespeare in love composer and Jack Thorne. It's about the construction of a playground in a deprived area in the 70's www.bristololdvic.org.uk/junkyard.html

[Mr Wallacio]

Going to see this end of Feb. Looking forward to it.

I actually directed one of the cast when he was at school before he subsequently went and studied at RADA.

[djdan14]

Booked this for Clywd Theatr in March. Thought it sounded interesting and another new theatre to visit that isn't all that far away from home.

[jek]

Very good review in the Guardian www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/mar/03/junkyard-review-jack-thorne-musical-school-headlong-bristol-old-vic Having read this I've booked to see it at The Rose in April. Not been there before but encouraged to book it by the very good deals for under 26 year olds (a category my daughter falls in to).

[daniel]

I'm also seeing this at the Rose in April, really looking forward to it!

[Mr Wallacio]

You won't be disappointed. And despite this being set in Bristol it is completely translatable to any town or city with deprived areas.

I loved this show.

[Deleted]

For a while, I wavered between enjoying this, then not being sure, then quite enjoying it... Until the last quarter hour or so which hit me as very affecting and quite brilliant, so I recommend this to all you North West Englanders to see it at Theatr Clwyd and the Londoners to see it at Rose Theatre Kingston.

As a musical, it seems reminiscent in parts of The Beggar's Opera and of London Road.

There are seven teenage characters and two or three of those actors are going near the top of my list of actors to watch out for and to see again. (No names - I don't want to jinx anyone)!

And one of the three adult characters is played by Lisa Palfrey, as touchingly and lovingly and funnily and believably as ever.

[CG on the loose]

Thanks for the recommendation - if my password reset email ever arrives, I shall be booking forthwith!

[Deleted]

I've been wavering on this one for the last few weeks, but you've tipped me over the edge. I accidentally made a £2 donation while booking too, so you'd better be right about it being worth it!

[crowblack]

We saw Junkyard at Theatr Clwyd on Friday (called a preview, but as it's touring I presume it's actually the finished article), and really enjoyed it. We're not usually musical-goers but were so impressed by Erin Doherty in Wish List that we made the trip. She was excellent again as Fiz, a very engaging, charismatic performance, and the rest of the ensemble cast are impressive, too, and I'll certainly be looking out for them in future. With this and Wish List (for which Doherty and her co-star in that, the also-excellent Joseph Quinn, have just won Manchester Theatre Awards, btw) it's been great to see so much fresh talent recently. The songs are good, slightly ska-ish, and there's an Ivor Cutler-like number in there too which went down very well on the night I saw it. The set is wonderful - I wanted to have a play on it! - and inventively used by all the cast. It's a really lively, vibrant, joyous show and got a thoroughly deserved ovation at the end.

I haven't been to Theatr Clwyd for years and I'd forgotten what a nice theatre it is, too. The seats are banked ampitheatre style so that in this production the stage is roughly on a level with the front row and the sightlines are excellent - I was on row D and, seeing pics of the staging from the Bristol Old Vic, I thought oh, I'll be too close to the stage and having to look up when in fact, because of the slope I was actually at eye level with the performers or slightly above - an excellent seat!

[Steve]

Loved this at the Rose Theatre. Affecting and sweary version of Dead Poets Society, set in a Bristol Playground, in which the power of the imagination stands to liberate some kids from their underprivileged and abusive backgrounds.

Some spoilers follow. . .

There is so much empathy and love in this show that I teared up. Be warned though, the love is hidden in the soft centre of a hard shell, in which the Bristol teenagers (played by young adults) posture and curse more than Renton in Trainspotting. You'd be hard-pressed to hear more c-words and f-words in any other show in town.

Couple the swearing with the suspicious anti-authoritarian another-brick-in-the-wall attitude adopted by the kids in the show, and you have a production that is likely to win over such kids in the audience, just as it puts off their prudish parents.

The first half of the show, the music and songs are Madness-inflected, with a marchy communal extrovert bolshiness; the second half, more Doors-inflected, with reverberant guitar strings and plaintive introspective lyrics. A couple of the songs are ear-worms, with the one about "the spider" still ringing in my head this morning.

The show did not fit my inbuilt dramatic pattern expectation, which anticipated the nadir-moment of a generally cheerful show to occur at the three-quarter mark, but which instead occurred half-way. This expectation transgressed, the second half felt overlong, though I'd be hard-pressed to say what to cut.

Erin Doherty is ferocious as Fizz, the furious, mischievous, irrepressible lead-character, and narrator, who opens up the milieu of the play. She completely fulfilled the high expectations I had of her from "Wish List." Calum Callaghan is more muted, endlessly relatable and reasonable, as Rick, the inspirational teacher at the centre of the adventure playground building project, yet equally as good, the yang to Doherty's yin.

The whole ensemble is also excellent, with Scarlett Brookes' sad-eyed pregnant Debbie, Josef Davies's disturbed violent Ginger and Enyi Okoronkwo's vulnerable poetic Talc especially affecting.

Despite the ending feeling long, this was a wonderful vibrant urgent heart-warming show, that could also work magic on the souls of the sorts of kids depicted, if only teachers and adults ignore the swearing and take them to see it!

4 stars

[Deleted]

Apr 22, 2017 10:33:51 GMT Steve said:

Couple the swearing with the suspicious anti-authoritarian another-brick-in-the-wall attitude adopted by the kids in the show, and you have a production that is likely to win over such kids in the audience, just as it puts off their prudish parents.

Apr 22, 2017 10:33:51 GMT Steve said:

Despite the ending feeling long, this was a wonderful vibrant urgent heart-warming show, that could also work magic on the souls of the sorts of kids depicted, if only teachers and adults ignore the swearing and take them to see it!

I don't think that the language is likely to be at all a problem for anyone. I've just seen a string of youth productions in one of the regional NT Connections Festivals and no one bats an eyelid. And it now seems odd and diminishing if a depiction of kids doesn't sound realistic or at least nod in that direction.

However, I admit that I find persistent repetitive language tiresome and irritating when apparently included lazily for effect in things like Richard Bean's Great Britain.

[Phantom of London]

I saw this yesterday and I had issues with the level of profanity and I am no prude. I just felt the tone was wrong for this type of musical. Also I have an aversion to adults playing children, sorrry. The score also didn't seem to be inspired - However a valiant effort in a musical that didn't really get going to later on.

[crowblack]

Apr 23, 2017 12:44:07 GMT Phantom of London said:

I have an aversion to adults playing children

I didn't notice it at all - they're fresh-faced young actors and conveyed teenage liveliness and awkwardness very well (it wasn't at all like 'Blue Remembered Hills'). I didn't think the sweariness was gratuitous, either - I thought the old couple next to me might have issues but they leaped up to give it an ovation at the end and loved it. It might, though, stop parents taking younger children, which would be a shame because I think they'd love it.

[CG on the loose]

I say again what I said upthread, THANK YOU for the recommendation! I would never have stumbled across this were it not for this board and I'm so glad I saw it. I didn't have an issue with the the 'adults as children' thing, nor with the sweariness which seemed entirely realistic. Compelling performances from its young cast gave the piece an honesty that was very refreshing.

[jek]

Saw this this afternoon with my 15 year old daughter. It needed to be good to compensate for the rather arduous journey from Stratford - I hadn't realised that it was Marathon Day when I booked and so the jubilee line was packed. On the other hand as my daughter had one of the £5 under 26s tickets and my ticket was only £20 it was hardly a big financial risk. In the event we both really enjoyed it. It was quite nostalgic for me as I used to frequent the local adventure playground in my part of East London as a kid in the early 70s. I remember lots of fires!

We both thought the performances were great - my daughter was immediately able to pinpoint exactly what role Erin Doherty had played in Call The Midwife while I recognised Kevin McMonagle from the very long ago series Bramwell in which he played a Victorian doctor alongside Jemma Redgrave.

A woman in front of us with primary age kids left about a quarter of an hour in to the play. At the end there certainly seemed to be lots of kids under the advised age of 14 leaving the performance and they all seemed animated rather than shocked. I can't imagine many youngsters being so sheltered that the language would come as a shock.

I had never been to Kingston before - either the place or the theatre. Certainly wouldn't make a special journey to go there again unless it was something I really wanted to see but the seats weren't as bad as I'd feared.

[showgirl]

I'm still dithering over this one as it would mean an extra trip to London (and the diversion to Kingston is a slow pain at the best of times) and the best availability is for the Sunday matinee (final performance), but that's the worst day for public transport. Then there is the addition of 2 fees to any booking not made in person and my aversion to swearing to factor in... so I'm biding my time.

[showgirl]

Caught the final (matinee) performance at Kingston today and found this rewarding on the whole. I would usually avoid anything in which adults play children and I did still squirm a bit at that, and the show had perhaps grown a little baggy as it came out at 2 hours 45, but it was certainly interesting and engaging and I was particularly impressed by Erin Doherty - obviously a familiar name to others but hitherto unknown to me. I'd have preferred it had there been more "proper" songs as opposed to so many instances when just a few lines were sung; I haven't come across this before and it seemed an unusual and puzzling choice, though based on the songs we did hear, not a case of lack of talent or inspiration on the writers' parts.