Fantastic talents of Leamington youth theatre in contrasting dramas

A SHOCKING and psychologically disturbing male-dominated play is contrasted with an extremely funny all-women drama in a double bill that displays the fantastic acting talents of Loft Youth Theatre members.

Chris O’Connell’s Car focuses on a group of what you might call ‘typical’ troublesome teenagers who most of us do our best to avoid. These lads are drugged up or alcohol-fuelled, violent, bad-tempered and don’t know whether they love or hate each other. While their actions and words - note there is a lot of very strong language - tend to make us detest them, the playwright delves deeper into their minds so we are given another perspective and end up appreciating that they too have emotional needs that ought to be addressed.

The four young actors take on the challenging and complex roles amazingly well. I felt disgusted by them at times but was also horrified by what they have to deal with through the course of the play. I was most impressed by Chales Engwell’s ability to portray the crazed and obsessive effects of drugs on a young body and mind. This was thoroughly engaging drama - but not for the faint-hearted.

The Youth Theatre’s second offering then, Tony Grounds’ Made In Spain, is a very welcome dose of comic relief after the interval. Four 1980s versions of footballers’ wives-type ladies meet, at their husbands’ orders, for a dinner to which their other halves never turn up. Several strong martinis and a good few bottles of wine lead to blunt exchanges, frank revelations and a hilarious visual spectacle as each character is exaggerated with heavy irony and the women have no one to turn to but each other as they find themselves in an ever-increasingly sticky situation.

All four actresses flung themselves into their roles with great confidence and enthusiasm, which was wonderful to see. But my favourite character was Estelle, played by Harriet Hall, whose no-bones and seen-it-all attitude steamrolls out any possibile notions of sentimentality to brilliant effect.

Verdict: Double bill has got it all.

Sundari Sankar