Herons ( Archived )

Reviews

newpaper reviews

(L to R) Billy Seymour, Nicolas Tennant; Lia Saville, Billy Seymour, Nicolas Tennant; Lia Saville, Billy Seymour

Production photography by Pete Jones

Direction: Simon Usher Design: Antony Lamble Lighting: Paul Russel Sound: Ian Dickinson

Cast: Robert Boulter, Jane Hazlegrove, Stuart Morris, Lia Saville, Billy Seymour, Nicolas Tennant , Ryan Winsley

“…What is remarkable about Simon Stephens’s play is that, while graphically acknowledging the nihilistic cruelty of east end school kids, it is also filled with a sense of life’s miraculous potential. It deals with damaged characters yet is imbued with a poetic lyricism.

“…Stephens is writing about a world in which cruelty and kindness oddly co-exist. Parents are screwed up. Teachers in hot weather, “treat you like wasps”. And childlike innocence is a myth in an east end where kids swear like troupers and behave like gangland barons. Yet Stephens’s Limehouse blues are offset by Charlie’s obduracy, the puzzled friendship bestowed on him by a 13-year old girl and the abundant variety of nature. It is as if Edward Bond’s world has been occupied by Wordsworth. What Stephens finally suggests is that teenage violence stems from a fear of life’s beauty. An arguable notion; but there is nothing remotely sentimental in the way he handles it nor in Simon Usher’s spare, implacable production. He also gets from Billy Seymour as the hero the best performance I’ve seen from a boy actor since Ken Loach’s Kes: Seymour’s steady, unwavering gaze as he hears his parents coarsely trashed by bully boys is astonishing to behold. And there is high-grade support from Nicholas Tennant as his rumpled dad who achieves articulacy only when fishing, Lia Saville as his quizzical female friend and Robert Boulter as his teenage tormentor. An extraordinary evening which suggests that in east London good and evil exist in symbiotic closeness.”

Michael Billington THE GUARDIAN

“…you could know zilch of the history of drama and still love Herons.I love the wit of its phrasing, the irony of its rhythm. And I love the compassion with which its characters even, eventually, the bullies are viewed. Simon Usher, directing, has handled his five teenage and two adult actors superbly; In other hands the play could have become either too coarse or too feelgood. Here, you hang on every moment, never know where the play will take you next, are drawn deep into an experience where style and content enrich each other.”

Alistair Macaulay FINANCIAL TIMES

“Yet there is far more evidence of both huge talent and great heart in Stephens’s writing. The play is constructed with skill, yielding its dark secrets slowly, and the terrifying violence is set against moments of beautiful tenderness. The scenes between Billy and his inadequate but far from contemptible dad, in which the boy seems more like a worried wife than a son, and between Billy and Adele, a 13-year old girl who has seen too much for her years, are both extraordinarily touching.

“Simon Usher directs a tense, gripping production of a play that comes over like both an inner city Lord of the Flies and Dirty Harry with a conscience. There is also a phenomenal performance from 15-year old Billy Seymour making his stage debut as the troubled hero, an alert, resourceful, instantly likeable boy who has to cope with man size problems. Seymour’s mixture of intelligence and vulnerability is painful to behold and in the plays brilliantly tense climax you don’t know whether to cheer or weep as Billy finally gains the upper hand. Robert Boulter could usefully use still more venom as Scott, but Nicolas Tennant memorably combines foul-mouthed fecklessness with remnants of decency as Billy’s dad, while Stuart Morris and Ryan Winsley are unforgettably horrible as Scott’s inane sidekicks.”

Charles Spencer DAILY TELEGRAPH