In Jonathan Houlston’s strikingly astute and absolutely gripping debut play, a school’s locker space is a retreat for its pupils. Here, hypermasculinity is carried out en masse, first dates are kept in secret and reputation-threatening confessions are whispered cautiously.We first fulfill the young boys as a pack, and collectively they play up to the tropes we’ve been on high alert about given that the TV drama Teenage years. Small talk sprayed with” your mum”jokes streams, chat about sex reduces their female schoolmates to objectives, and nude photos are shared around like trophies.Well-worn familiarity … Luke Rhodri and Michelle McTernan in Athletics.
Photograph: Kirsten McTernan But Houlston presents this montage only as a starting point, before unstitching the group and taking on the cliches. By the end, each has our sympathy. Ringleader Jason(Harry Lynn)might be a brute to the others, but he’s fending off much even worse at home. Joe (Houlston) proves himself sweetly inexperienced on his first date with Holly (Anna-Sophia Tutton). Two of the young boys remain in a hushed-up relationship with each other, frightened of being discovered out.Timing is essential: it’s the last year of school and those who leave Swansea for university might not look back, splintering the set for great. Maybe since of this, Joe is questioning his friendship with Jason, who regularly spikes his beverages and teases him about his weight. Is it small talk, or something more sinister?Things come to a head at a drunken celebration, and while Houlston’s Swansea thorough students know none of the very same opportunities, there’s an echo of Laura Wade’s skillfully mapped Swank to the way hierarchies within the group are challenged, commitments are liquified and a strategy to cover their backs is fast thrown together.Director Richard Mylan’s production for Grand Aspiration has the mastery of a show that’s been running for years, not a matter of days. All 7 performers, consisting of Michelle McTernan
as teacher Miss Rider, inhabit their characters with likewise well-worn familiarity. The young boys bounce around Delyth Evans’locker-room set with the agility of dancers, landing punches and managing remarkable throwing up stunts.A cliffhanger ending leaves the door open for a 2nd instalment this story does not actually require. This is teen masculinity in its whole: loud however unsure, fragile yet primed to fight. At Swansea Grand theatre up until 11 July