Concrete Jungle review, Riverside Studios

The bared necessities

In the Concrete Jungle everyone's a predator. Those young people who stick together do so out of fear, not affection, moving in herds to ensure all angles are covered. But there's no safety in numbers when everyone's also prey.

Bola Agbaje's new play strips the fear factor to bare essentials, showing how families drawing on traditional structures are the most fragile of all. Osman is the man of his family, charged with the care of his sister while their mother works shifts. Given free reign, the foolish teenager abuses her trust. When his friends start colonising the front room, it is only a matter of time before the shooting and knifings on the estate outside the door, extend their grim reach within.

Agbaje's script explores the breakdown of family in the jungle, a world driven by sexism that reduces the women to victims - victims of ineffectual young men lacking nurture, education, or male input and pushed into patriarchal roles they cannot possibly fulfil.  The result is toddlers in adult bodies struggling to make sense of the world, unable to meet responsibilities they don't understand, and running from cold truths. In the end it is the women who have to say no, the women who have to speak out, and the women who lose everything.

In conclusion: The first half is too long and loses its way with the weaving in of a complex plot line introducing a posh girlfriend, but the second half, when the strands come together, is powerful and highly charged.

References
Riverside Studios