How To Catch A Rabbit

Embedded in the grain of this play, set amidst the gypsy community in London, is deep scorn for the state. It is encroaching on the travellers' way of life. The council, we are told, just doesn't understand it.

But does the London School of Economics Student Theatre Company, populated by young people from one of the most prestigious institutions in the world, have any more affinity with gypsies?

It turns out maybe they do. But from the deftness and imagination on show here, they have an even greater affinity with theatre.

Five meandering vignettes about life on a South East London estate are interspersed and energised with dramatic movement pieces. Kitchen sink patter is swapped for sudden attacks on gypsy settlements, “a melody of blood and ammonia”, replete with choreographed smashing of pots and dying horses: like Picasso's 'Guernica' transposed to Peckham. 

At another occasion the whole cast mimics songbirds, a thinly veiled analogy for the travellers. It is a far cry from My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding.

These movement pieces elevate the well-observed but occasionally worthy straight pieces. The nobility amongst the downtrodden is hammered home a little too obviously. Everyone appears to be a scholar within the slums; at one point, two characters discuss the crop cycles of Mesopotamia.

But in making a small space feel very large—combined with a stand out turn from Pip Willett as Stan, a gypsy channelling the spirit of Malcolm McDowell's Alex from A Clockwork Orange—these LSE students have crafted a thoughtful piece of theatre.