Seventeen

Seventeen was overshadowed by Taylor Swift. It drummed up publicity but also drove us to distraction, waiting for the moment where the 70-something cast would Shake It Off, getting it, complete with awkward daggy dance moves (no bump'n'grind), and then wondering if the song was really necessary at all. It's supposedly the centrepiece of a play about nothing, but about so much at the same time: about youth and anxiety and ageing and the spectre of the "future". The gimmick of course is that the 17 year olds on their last day of school are played by 70-something theatre veterans, some of our best, which adds a layer of nostalgia and depth to what could've just been a run-of-the-mill, teens-growing-up story. 

It's Barry Otto who shines as Ronny, the outsider, who has his sleeping bag laid out at the park in which the others are having their last piss-up. He brings such a depth of feeling to a character who could've seemed one-note. The other cast members: John Gaden as Mike, Peter Carroll as Tom, Maggie Dence as Sue, Anna Volska as Edwina and Genevieve Lemon as Lizzy, adeptly work with the material; the writing from Matthew Whittet is at times hilarious and nuanced, witty and playful, and at others it sags, perhaps because he doesn't quite tap into the mode of speaking of teenagers in 2015. And director Anna-Louise Sarks has managed to get our theatre greats climbing playground jungle gyms and careening down slides, offering us a glimpse of who we were and who we could become.