Rhona Foulis
posted 13 March 2006

Having premiered at Finborough Theatre last year, Year 10 now transfers to BAC's Studio, as Time Out's Critics' Choice. I couldn't help wondering, why?

15-year old Jack is the new kid at school. Ostensibly inoffensive, he worries that he's insane, having unintentionally attacked his brother with a kitchen knife. BAC's confrontational Studio space is entirely appropriate to Simon Vinnicombe's first play, which boldly confronts the audience with issues of teen angst, school bullying and mental instability. Dinah England's simple set consists of a wire fence, demarcating the school playground, jutting out into the audience and compressing the playing space in front of us. The fence also sets up an interesting inside/outside dynamic: the action takes place within and without the school playground, as characters are trapped in and escape the school boundaries. In this hard-hitting play, the school playground is a terrifying place of bullying, drugs, homophobia, racism and sexual conquests, with the teachers either passive or powerless. Vinnicombe paints an alarmingly real picture of the issues of adolescence, but not the adolescents themselves.

Vinnicombe is right to give centre-stage to his young characters, but is in danger of over-writing their voices. Jack acts as a kind of narrator, punctuating scenes with self-reflections, as he writes a diary to his estranged brother. Whilst the device dramatises Jack's restless loneliness, it sometimes sounds like the voice-over for a US teen drama and we quickly tire of Jack's introspection and philosophical musings, like 'what is hell?'. Jack verbalises and reveals too much, replacing dramatic intrigue with exposition. Year 10 repeatedly explains the actions of its characters, rather than allowing the audience to piece the jigsaw together. Roguish Wes reveals uncharacteristic insight into Jon, explaining that he's 'just a bit fucked up; he needs a bit of love', and later understands his enjoyment of fighting: 'it's the endorphins'. The link between football fanatacism and aggression is also over-stated. Despite this, Wes and Jon are the only conceivable characters here, dramatising a convincing relationship of power, with underdog Jon submitting to Wes's control, before venting his rage on Jack. Oher characters and relationships are disappointingly under-nourished.

Middle-aged teacher Mr Vickory claims to be able to offer Jack 'protection' (as if he were involved in some sort of bullying mafia). He offers only the passive support that 'it will get better'; and when Jack is on the verge of running away, utters the pathetic parting words 'You'll be all right, Jack.' The male figures are poorly drawn, with no development of Jack's absent father and their relationship together. Year 10 also presents the simplistic message that fathers are to blame for children's problems and mothers are immutable victims. Vinnicombe patronisingly perpetuates the cultural construction of woman as passive sexual O.

Jamie confesses that she can't help going out with 'tossers', appearing to enjoy her own sexual objectification. Despite clearly perceiving Wes's malicious and violent nature, Jamie loses her virginity to him with the justification: 'Well, he's fit'. But it is Jack's mum who wins the prize for most irritatingly insubstantial character. Throughout the play, Susan appears to suffer from some sort of nervous breakdown, with no character progression. Susan's actions and lack of response to Jack's mental issues are never explained, her character simply dismissed as a deranged and/or depressed mess after her marital split. Similarly, we learn that Jamie's relationship with her mother has been destroyed by her 'wanker' step-dad. Karen Winchester's poor performance does nothing to salvage Susan from an incomprehensible hysterical wreck. Jenny Gleave maintains her focus, but offers no depth to her abused sexually misused Jamie. Furthermore, director Max Key seems to bypass the scripted chemistry between Jack and Jamie, which is too gesturally demonstrative. The only performance to convince is a frighteningly powerful one from Bradley Gardner as rottweiler bully Wes. Otherwise, Key's actors seem to speak in a vacuum.

What Vinnicombe and Key lack in character portrayal, they fail to make up in dramatic tension. The impending danger of Wes and his fiery temper bestows a level of predictability to the play. Though the second half does work towards a climax, with Jack becoming increasingly angry and rebelling through truancy, his repeated self-narration set up the action too neatly. For instance, immediately before he runs away, he asks 'Do you think it's brave to run?'. The reported action in dialogue also diminishes the drama on stage.

Year 10 delivers a disturbingly credible dramatisation of school bullying and trauma, and the fear that lies at its root, when 'no-one does a fucking thing about it'. But that snapshot alone cannot substantiate a play. Vinnicombe's badly drawn boys and girls don't stand up in Max Key's production, and plausible bully Wes isn't enough to provide the audience's through-line into the wider issues and relationships at play. Year 10 gets a tick for gritty realism, but a cross against engaging drama.

Till 19 March 2006