Mogadishu review, Lyric Hammersmith

Class act

In an inner city playground a white teacher intervenes in a fight. She puts her hands on the shoulders of the assailant, Jason, and is pushed to the floor. What follows is a surreal distortion in which her well-meant underplaying of the incident to protect the boy, backfires when he reports the exchange as a violent racist incident in which he has been the victim.

Vivenne Franzmann's first play works on many levels with unremitting intensity. It sets up and plays with stereotypes, twisting and turning so we're constantly forced to reappraise our responses. We have the black troublemaker; the PC teacher; the self-harming white girl; the struggling single parent; the special needs kid and a disparate gang. Behind them, the weak and oleaginous Headmaster calculates that funds spent on interventions to support Jason over four years, could have paid for an interactive whiteboard needed by the Art Department.

Every dark moment - and they are many - is offset with humour. The audience laughs out loud at scenes that would normally demand propriety. The lead actors have been refreshed since Mogadishu first played at The Lyric last year (it is back for one week only at the end of a national tour). The new Jason is less scary and his teacher, Amanda, is more woolly. Everyone is a little softer. The upside of this is that the nuance in the script is easier to see and provides new food for thought.

In conclusion: Matthew Dunster's direction brings a great script to life, and the acting is superb at every level, especially the playground kids who are utterly believable. This isn't an easy night out, but the rewards are worth it.

References
Lyric Theatre, tickets
Michael Coveney review of the original cast in Whats On Stage