Broken Voices

One wonders exactly how qualified playwright Peter Bird is to articulate the sense of disaffection shared by the average teenager. Though he's likely to have been one at some point in his life, his memories of the period seem both quaintly dated and clouded by contemporary opinion. Broken Voices was clearly written with a view to redressing attitudes towards the troublesome youth of today. Unfortunately, much of its content is, in its own way, as reactionary as the views it attempts to dispel.

As a group of teens gather in a detention room, punished while on a school trip, they deliver soliloquies which absolve them of any blame for their supposed offences. One is unhappy with her body and finds it difficult to be true to herself while living under the shadow of an older sibling. Another chooses to stand up to a bullying, autocratic P.E. teacher. Seb, the most troubled protagonist, sings beautifully but is pushed into pursuing a talent for which his peers bully him.

The eight kids all display much acting promise and one has to admire their professionalism. They clearly believe in the piece's artistic worth. Unfortunately, Bird's script, rife as it is with choruses of 'Ging Gang Goolie', isn't as up-to-date as it would like to think. Most crucially, he fails to represent the senses of wonder, freedom and idiocy intrinsic in being young, no matter how bored, misunderstood and put-upon an individual is. The fate that the students ultimately meet is an inappropriately melodramatic conclusion, whatever its intent.