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A triumph of modern theatre
WHITE BOY
Soho Theatre
MARTIN Dinnegan, 14. Jevon Henry, 17. Tommy Winston, 18.
The roll-call of school children, stabbed to death on our doorsteps, sends shivers down the spine. Seventeen teenagers have been murdered by their peers in London since January.
In White Boy, based on the true story of 15-year-old Kiyan Prince – the promising QPR footballer murdered as he tried to break up a fight outside his school – playwright Tanika Gupta holds the mirror up to nature and cracks the pane.
It is a gut-wrenching tale of vulnerability and pressure told with all the poetry and rage that defines school life.
This production, performed by the exceptionally talented actors of the National Youth Theatre, goes where liberal theatre is yet to dare. Its protagonist Ricky is a white, working class boy, struggling to find himself in multicultural London. Ricky’s exaggerated West Indian twang, hand-whip gestures and kissed teeth are all cries for acceptance. “It’s not cool to be white anymore, bredda,” he says. “You may have learned the lingo – but you ain’t one of us,” says his best mate Victor.
Cringing? Don’t. The dialogue, which may sound out of place in this review, is spoken with authority and from experience. The NYT always punch above their weight.
But this story, in particular, is told with the natural ease that can only come from first-hand experience of what it is like to grow up in London.
I read in the programme notes that they visited the shrine of Islington’s Martin Dinnegan during rehearsals. The great strength of White Boy is its subtlety. Gupta avoids ramming a morality tale down our throats.
The social inequality, the failures of the school system, the burdens of expectation, CCTV, asylum-seekers, are all there but understated.
They are just part of life – and worryingly so.
This crisis – this week I read of new stab-proof school uniforms being issued – is not getting any better.
Until September 2
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