Tramway, Glasgow
3 stars
The little republic of damaged adolescents at the heart of this punchy piece of extended theatre in education by Solar Bear UNITED, the youth wing of its parent company, are a worryingly familiar bunch. As they beat out their opening call to arms down at their adventure playground den with hands, feet and drums, some sense of tribal unity pours out of their collective desire to share their stories, or even just to belong. The ingrained use of sign language adds to the effect, providing the sort of shorthand codes beloved of world-saving gangs from Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven to young people’s future fantasy TV drama, The Tribe.
Developed from a series of nationwide workshops and scripted by Ronnie Simon for Gerry Ramage’s confident, good-looking production, Broken’s multi-stranded plot ticks so many boxes and crams into its 65 minutes so many different depictions of institutionalised dysfunctionality as to more resemble a sociologist’s paradise than the depiction of sanctuary it actually is.
It’s not that its role-call of runaway social work cases, burgeoning (homo) sexuality, dead parents, live parents, abuse, self-harm and suicide isn’t taking seriously subjects of perennial real-life concern. It’s just that, despite being performed with energy and verve by 10 accomplished young actors holding their own alongside professionals Jill Riddiford and Simon himself stepping up, it’s an utterly old-fashioned telling. Especially given how long mainstream young adults television has been dealing with them. The gay strand in particular is currently being played out in very similar fashion in tea-time teen-opera, Hollyoaks. Which either suggests that Broken is little more than soft soap, or else that an otherwise trashy TV vehicle is actually cutting-edge.
The Herald, June 7th 2007
ends
3 stars
The little republic of damaged adolescents at the heart of this punchy piece of extended theatre in education by Solar Bear UNITED, the youth wing of its parent company, are a worryingly familiar bunch. As they beat out their opening call to arms down at their adventure playground den with hands, feet and drums, some sense of tribal unity pours out of their collective desire to share their stories, or even just to belong. The ingrained use of sign language adds to the effect, providing the sort of shorthand codes beloved of world-saving gangs from Enid Blyton’s Secret Seven to young people’s future fantasy TV drama, The Tribe.
Developed from a series of nationwide workshops and scripted by Ronnie Simon for Gerry Ramage’s confident, good-looking production, Broken’s multi-stranded plot ticks so many boxes and crams into its 65 minutes so many different depictions of institutionalised dysfunctionality as to more resemble a sociologist’s paradise than the depiction of sanctuary it actually is.
It’s not that its role-call of runaway social work cases, burgeoning (homo) sexuality, dead parents, live parents, abuse, self-harm and suicide isn’t taking seriously subjects of perennial real-life concern. It’s just that, despite being performed with energy and verve by 10 accomplished young actors holding their own alongside professionals Jill Riddiford and Simon himself stepping up, it’s an utterly old-fashioned telling. Especially given how long mainstream young adults television has been dealing with them. The gay strand in particular is currently being played out in very similar fashion in tea-time teen-opera, Hollyoaks. Which either suggests that Broken is little more than soft soap, or else that an otherwise trashy TV vehicle is actually cutting-edge.
The Herald, June 7th 2007
ends
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