Wonder-ful:Hilson Agbangbe’s Sonny in Wonder Boy. Picture: Steve Tanner
WHAT was the last play to capture the forlorn yet defiantly hopeful schoolroom experience so expressively? Willy Russell’s musical Our Day Out, with its busload of bored teens, springs to mind; John Godber’s Teechers even more so, especially in its Leavers 22 revamp.
In a new class of its own is Ross Willis’s Wonder Boy, an exploration of the power of communication with the aid of creative captioning, wherein the electronic screen captures every last repeated letter of young Sonny’s “Stammer Horror” experience.
At the helm of Bristol Old Vic’s touring production is Sally Cookson, whose unforgettable National Theatre staging of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre lit up the Grand Opera House with such vitality, imagination and innovation in 2017 that it won that year’s Hutch Award for Stage Production of the Year in York.
What her reading of Wonder Boy shares with her Jane Eyre is its focus on a central character’s struggles in a world seemingly set against them, taking up residence inside the head of the outsider so completely that we feel we are in there too.
In this case, 12-year-old Sonny (Hilson Agbangbe) lives with a stammer that leaves him silent and sullen at school. Words, not ideas, hopes or flights of fancy, evade him except when in the company of his imaginary friend, the combative word warrior Captain Chatter (Ciaran O’Breen).
The omnipresent caption and video design, courtesy of Limbic Cinema’s Tom Newell, charts every uttering of Sonny, whether fluent when kept inside that troubled head or when in conversation with rebellious, trouble-magnet friend Roshi (Naia Elliott-Spence), report-obsessed new head teacher Miss Fish (Meg Matthews at Wednesday’s matinee/Jessica Murrain) or his Mum (Matthews/Murrain again) in flashback scenes that trace her downward spiral.
Sonny expresses himself in his comic-book drawings, but inevitably bullying will spoil that well of creativity and expression in this struggling, downtrodden secondary school.
When the insensitive Miss Fish decides to impose the role of the Guard in Hamlet on him in the school play, Sonny finds an ally in the shape of unconventional deputy head Wainwright (Eva Scott), Wonder Boy’s answer to Godber’s new drama teacher in Teechers, Geoff Nixon.
Wainwright likes Ryvita nibbles, paper planes and Star Wars models; Wainwright dislikes Miss Fish’s methods, manner and form-filling excesses. For all her love of teaching, she will be the next to join the stampede of exits stage left from the teaching profession.
Willis writes with an anger and vigour, a frustration too, to match former teacher Godber – and that of Sonny too, although the boy’s determination to deliver his lines brings tears to the eye.
Cookson’s witty and wise direction combines with Willis’s astute writing to bring out the playful, scabrous humour as much as the pathos in Wonder Boy, not least in not shying away from the frank, “very sweary” language that adds even more impact.
Agbangbe and Scott, in particular, are terrific, their scenes together being the most moving your reviewer has seen on a York stage this year. Top marks too for Katie Sykes’s set and costume design, Laila Diallo’s Kapow-style movement direction and Benji Bower’s incidental compositions.
Wonder Boy is wondrous theatre, a lesson to us all in the importance of listening and breaking down barriers. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
OLIVIER Award winner Sally Cookson directs Bristol Old Vic’s production of Wonder Boy, Ross Willis’s exploration of the power of communication, on tour at York Theatre Royal from tonight to Saturday.
Playful humour, dazzling visuals and thrilling original music combine in this innovative show that uses live creative captioning on stage throughout as 12-year-old Sonny, who lives with a stammer, must find a way to be heard in a world where language is power, with the aid of his imaginary friend Captain Chatter.
When cast in a school production of Hamlet by the head teacher, Sonny discovers the real heroes are closer than he thinks.
Here Sally discusses the wonders of Wonder Boy.
How did your production of Wonder Boy come to fruition?
“I was invited to a new writing festival at Bristol Old Vic Theatre School pre-pandemic in which Ross Willis’s play was presented. It jumped out at me as a piece of unique writing, and I was attracted to the way Ross combined an absurd world with the very real. It made me laugh and cry.
“I contacted him and went to see his production of Wolfie at Theatre 503 [in Battersea, London], which I loved. Tom Morris [the then artistic director of Bristol Old Vic] agreed to programme Wonder Boy the following year at Bristol Old Vic but that got postponed because of Covid.
“Ross and I got to know each other during the pandemic via delightful phone calls where we’d just talk about anything and everything. Chatting with Ross is like being in one of his plays. Wonder Boy finally got performed in 2022, a couple of years later than intended, but by which time we’d had a chance to dream up ideas together about the show.
Hilson Agbangbe as Sonny in Bristol Old Vic’s Wonder Boy. Picture: Steve Tanner
In the play, Ross Willis writes movingly about the frustrations that can come with having a stammer. How did you bring that into the structure of the show?
“This is at the heart of the piece. Ross calls it the great inner operatic pain that comes not being able to be seen or express yourself. It was essential that we found a way of bringing all elements of the production together to illustrate and highlight Sonny’s plight.
“Music is especially important in helping with this and Benji Bower’s composition manages to get right inside the character’s head. But casting an actor who is able to portray the character’s trauma is key.
“Understanding what causes Sonny to behave in the way he does and identify every moment of his thought process is vital. Some of Sonny’s darkest moments happen when there is no text, so being able to identify how his pain manifests physically is important too.
“Ross has written it into the structure of the show, those big absurd moments when Shakespeare comes to life to torment Sonny or when vowels and letters attack him are all moments that tap into his inner operatic pain.”
How is creative captioning used in the show?
“The play is about what happens when a person communicates differently and the challenges they face when fluent speech is the expected societal norm. It felt entirely natural to include creative captions as part of the overall design of the show to tap into the major theme of communication.
“Creative captioning involves incorporating the entire text into the world of the play. We don’t just display the words on a small digital strip positioned either to the left or right of the stage; we ensure that all the words spoken are visually central to the piece.
Designed by Tom Newell, the creative captions provide another creative layer and are not only an access tool for deaf, deafened or hard of hearing people but an important part of the imaginative world created in the play.”
Hilson Agbangbe’s Sonny with his imaginary friend, Ciaran O’Breen’s Captain Chatter. Picture: Steve Tanner
Wonder Boy deals with mental health issues, such as suicide. Can theatre do that particularly well?
“My experience is that theatre is a wonderful place to interrogate the stuff that frightens us as humans. And to ask those questions safely in a rehearsal room, and to share that with an audience is what theatre does best.
“In Wonder Boy the protagonist Sonny experiences complicated feelings of guilt, shame, grief and anger as a result of his mother’s death by suicide. A lot of plays written for young people shy away from themes such as this, but Ross approaches the subject with honesty and integrity. He understands what young people endure and gives voice to their suffering in an imaginative way.
“Theatre is a space to gather together to explore human behaviour, and hopefully come away with a bit more understanding of why we do the things we do.”
Wonder Boy is a play for young people – and very “sweary” too. Discuss…
“Oh, we had so many discussions about the ‘sweariness’. It has taken us around and about and back to where we started, which is why we’ve changed very little of it. Ross is quite right – most young people swear a lot. It has become part of the way they communicate.
Some adults get quite upset about the amount of swearing in the show; no young people do. And the play really is for teenagers. Getting teenagers into the theatre is very difficult, and I think Ross has absolutely found a way of engaging them – by telling a beautiful and important story and using an extreme version of the language they identify with.
A scene from Bristol Old Vic’s touring production of Wonder Boy
This show illustrates the impact of art, and theatre in particular, on young people, especially those who experiencing difficulties. Are you passionate about this?
“Yes. That’s what helped me. I hated school. I was really miserable. And my mum sent me to the local youth theatre. That’s where my journey into the arts started. And it’s where I suddenly felt valued, and where I had a voice, so I feel very strongly about it.
And now more than ever – with a curriculum starved of the arts (hopefully this will soon change) – theatre is essential in engaging young people’s imaginations and allowing them space to dream and think big.”
What can theatre give to a young person who is struggling to be heard or to find a voice?
“So many things. It’s not just about encouraging young people to work in the arts. By joining a youth theatre, being part of an audience regularly, partaking in drama, it can make you feel more connected, less alone.
“It can inspire your imagination, make you think bigger, think differently; it can encourage empathy by helping you understand why other people behave like they do. It can tap into your own artistic talents, and help you find things out about yourself that you never knew you had. It can also just be a good laugh. The list is endless.”
Bristol Old Vic presents Wonder Boy, York Theatre Royal, tonight until Saturday; evenings, 7.30pm, tonight, tomorrow and Friday; matinees, 2pm, Wednesday, Thursday; 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 / yorktheatreroyal.co.uk.
Flashback
Nadia Clifford as Jane Eyre in the National Theatre’s Jane Eyre, directed by Sally Cookson
IN the 2017 Hutch Awards, Sally Cookson’s National Theatre staging of Jane Eyre, performed on tour at the Grand Opera House, York, won Stage Production of the Year in York made outside York.
“YOU will not see a better theatre show in York this year, and you won’t have seen a better theatre show in York since The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time”. So The York Press review stated in May that year.
How true that proved to be. Cookson’s devised production of vivid, vital imagination brought Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre back to Yorkshire with breathtaking results.
The National Theatre’s Jane Eyre: on the NT’s YouTube channel
THE National Theatre’s celebrated production of Jane Eyre will be shown on the NT’s YouTube channel for free on Thursday at 7pm.
This will be the second in the two-month series of
National Theatre At Home screenings that was launched with One Man, Two Guvnors
last Thursday, since when more than two million people have watched Hull playwright
Richard Bean’s comic romp.
Cookson’s re-imagining of Charlotte Brontë’s inspiring Yorkshire
story of trailblazing Jane was first staged by Bristol Old Vic in 2015 and
transferred to the National in the same year with a revival in 2017.
In May that year, the National Theatre’s touring
production visited the Grand Opera House, York, for a week’s run, winning the “Stage
Production of the Year in York Made outside York” award in the annual Hutch
Awards in The Press, York.
Cookson’s bold, innovative and dynamic production uncovers one woman’s fight for freedom and fulfilment on her own terms. From her beginnings as a destitute orphan, spirited Jane Eyre faces life’s obstacles head on, surviving poverty, injustice and the discovery of bitter betrayal before taking the ultimate decision to follow her heart.
During this unprecedented time of the enforced shutdown of theatres, cinemas and schools in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, National Theatre At Home is providing access to content online to serve audiences in their homes.
Audiences around the world can stream NT
Live productions for free via YouTube every Thursday at 7pm BST and
each one will then be available on demand for seven days.
Coming next after Jane Eyre will be Bryony Lavery’s adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island from April 16 and Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, starring Tamsin Greig as Malvolio, from April 23. Further titles will be announced.
Alongside the streamed productions, National
Theatre At Home will feature accompanying interactive content, such as question-and-answer
sessions with cast and creative teams and post-stream talks. Further details
of this programme will follow.
National Theatre Live turned ten on June 25 last year: the date of the first such broadcast in 2009, namely Phédre, starring Helen Mirren. Over those ten years, more than 80 theatre productions have been shown in 3,500 venues worldwide, reaching an overall audience of more than ten million.
NT Live now screens in 2,500 venues across 65 countries. Recent broadcasts include Cyrano de Bergerac with James McAvoy; Noel Coward’s Present Laughter with Andrew Scott; Fleabag with Phoebe Waller-Bridge; Arthur Miller’s All My Sons with Sally Field and Bill Pullman; All About Eve with Gillian Anderson and Lily James; Shakespeare’s Antony And Cleopatra with Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo; Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar with David Morrissey and Ben Whishaw and Tennessee Williams’s Cat On A Hot Tin Roof with Sienna Miller.
Here is Charles Hutchinson’s review of the National Theatre’s Jane Eyre when it played the Grand Opera House, York, in May 2017, published in The Press, York. Please note, the cast differed from the one to be seen in the National Theatre Live performance on YouTube from Thursday.
Nadia Clifford as Jane Eyre in the National Theatre’s touring production of Jane Eyre at the Grand Opera House, York, in May 2017
YOU will not see a
better theatre show in York this year, and you won’t have seen a better theatre
show in York since The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time.
For those who want
their National Theatre to be for everyone, and not only for London, then the
Grand Opera House is doing a fine job of bringing the NT north, thanks to the
pulling power of the GOH’s owners, the Ambassador Theatre Group.
Your reviewer
cannot urge you enough to see Sally Cookson’s remarkable interpretation of
Charlotte Bronte’s no less remarkable novel. Yes, some of the ticket prices are
on a Premier League scale, but this is Premier League theatre. What’s more,
Jane Eyre is a Yorkshire story, back on home turf after Cookson’s premiere at the
Bristol Old Vic and subsequent transfer to the South Bank.
Rather than being
adapted for the stage with a plodding narrator, this is a devised production of
vivid, vital imagination. Michael Vale’s set is rough hewn, gutted to the
minimum, with wooden flooring and walkways, a proliferation of ladders, a sofa,
and yet it evokes everything of Bronte’s harsh world.
Cookson’s cast is
multi role-playing, aside from Nadia Clifford’s Jane Eyre, who never once
leaves the stage in three hours (interval aside), changing costumes in full
view with the assistance of fellow cast members.
The story hurtles
along so fast, the ensemble company runs on the spot between scenes to the
accompaniment of thunderous drums, and they even take a mock piddle at one
point in the rush to crack on: one of the comic elements to counter the
grimness up north.
Energy, energy, energy!
And that applies not only to Clifford’s feisty, fiery Jane Eyre, whose accent
may curve towards her native North West, but that in no way lessens her performance.
The cast as a whole is
magnificent, be it Tim Delap’s troubled Rochester, Evelyn Miller’s triptych of
Bessie, Blanche Ingram and St John; Paul Mundell’s austere Mr Brocklehurst and
tail-wagging Pilot the dog; Lynda Rooke’s chalk and cheese Mrs Reed and Mrs
Fairfax or surely-too-good-to-be-an understudy Francesca Tomlinson’s five-hand
of roles.
There is so much
more that makes Cookson’s production so startling, movingly brilliant: the
sound design of Dominic Bilkey, the inexhaustible movement direction of Dan
Canham; the beautiful, haunting compositions of Benji Bower for the on-stage
band of David Ridley, Alex Heane and Matthew Churcher, who join in ensemble
scenes too and never take their gaze off the action.
Last, but very
definitely not least, is Melanie Marshall, the diva voice of Bertha Mason, a
one-woman Greek chorus whose versions of Mad About The Boy and Gnarls Barkley’s
Crazy will linger like Jane Eyre in the memory.
