By: Rosie Sharman-Ward
As we enter the auditorium to see Bad Lads there is a caption saying, “This play is SHORT, SHARP AND SHOCKING” and it absolutely is. Dark, visceral and utterly compelling, Graeae bring to the stage the bitter, unpalatable story of the victims of the failed Short, Sharp Shock policy for young offenders in the 1980s.
Bad Lads is created from a story by Jimmy Coffey and the testimonies of the other boys incarcerated in the Medomsley detention centre. These testimonies are distilled into a single fictitious character, Jackie.
Director Jenny Sealey’s production begins with three men, Older Jackie, Younger Jackie and Signing Jackie. Older Jackie, Danny Raynor, is arguing with Younger Jackie, Robin Paley Yorke as to whether he can tell his story. Halting and obviously traumatised he tries. Signing Jackie, Craig Painting not only translates their words into British Sign Language but his expressive face and movements illustrate the relationship between the two versions of Jackie.
Just seventeen with a couple of laddish petty crimes under his belt, Jackie is sentenced to three months in Medomsley for drinking and taking a milk float for a joyride. Jackie is surprised by his custodial sentence but with teenage bravado reckons, “Three months? I can do three months!”
Jackie is a kid brought up in a tough area where shouting, clouts and fights were commonplace, yet nothing prepares him, or the audience, for the hellish experience of the Medomsley regime. Within moments of his arrival, he is yelled at and physically abused. Shocked and in pain his youthful resilience leads him to believe that if he follows the rules and keeps his head down, he will make it. That is until he signs up to be a Kitchen Lad….
All three performers are quite simply incredible. Their character’s evident pain and terror oozed out to those watching, we feel the stifling dread. The interpreter became the link, the illustration of the feelings between the two ages of Jackie or other characters. It must be extremely challenging for all of them to project those feelings to us but they do it so seamlessly that I almost feel the need to ask them if they are ok afterwards!
The simplicity of this production with a chill set of grey walls and hard metal furniture lends an extra edge of pure horror to the unspeakable, relentless regime of ritual abuse suffered by the boys. The only time colour is introduced it becomes sickening because of the circumstances. The question repeatedly asked is, “Why does no one do something? They must have known!”
It is undeniable that Mike Kenny’s play is a fiercely intense experience, it is an amazing and brave piece of theatre and it is accessible to all. I would caution people to pay attention to the content warnings but also encourage going to see it. It is a hard emotional watch triggering huge emotions in us as the audience. Indeed, when the play ended most of the audience sat there stunned for a long moment before heading home. Jackie is just a lad who nowadays would have probably received a Community Service Order for his offence. Certainly no one deserves the degradation and shame inflicted on him and the other boys. It is a story that needs to be told, however, from a personal point of view I am not sure what to do with these emotions now. I am left furiously angry and deeply sad for the victims. That Government has gone and most of the perpetrators of this evil are dead, so what now? These men deserve justice and if we can no longer achieve this for them then keep telling their story.