November 3, 2009
Well, it was never going to be a barrel of laughs now was it? Kes is the story of Billy, a feckless young lad in bleak northern mining town. He comes from a broken home with a bully (step?-)brother, a despondent mother and an absent father. Billy does not seem to have any real friends, gets bullied at school, gets picked on by teachers and shows absolutely no interest in anything. He has no girlfriend, no money and no prospect of anything getting better.
But there is one small thing which Billy does have: Kes. Kes, the Kestrel which he has raised from a chick and has painstakingly trained, is the one good thing in his life. It represents the grace and freedom which the awkward, trapped and powerless Billy yeans for so desperately. It is the one thing that gives his life meaning. So, do you really think it’s all going to work out well?
The acting was perfectly acceptable all round, with particularly good sullen body-language from Stefan Butler, playing Billy. The voice he used for Billy was also very appropriate; a petulant shriek that really grated on one’s nerves and made it quite hard to like poor Billy, who, with the exception of training a bird, does nothing really to endear us to him. The rest of the cast also managed to carry themselves in such a way as to convey a despondency and lack of faith in the future that always pervades gritty northern dramas. In terms of the production everything was all very professional, with the notable exception of some rather poor physical theatre that came out of nowhere and didn’t really add anything.
The whole performance, especially the first half, was depressing in a very particular sort of way, and my companion and I were slowly ground into our seats by a heaviness that was not so much crushing as relentless. The director, Nikolai Foster, really did do a very good job of conveying the slow hopelessness and dull pervading misery that is Billy’s life. The question you have to ask yourself however is; ‘is that very particular feeling really something I want to go to the theatre to experience?’
But there is one small thing which Billy does have: Kes. Kes, the Kestrel which he has raised from a chick and has painstakingly trained, is the one good thing in his life. It represents the grace and freedom which the awkward, trapped and powerless Billy yeans for so desperately. It is the one thing that gives his life meaning. So, do you really think it’s all going to work out well?
The acting was perfectly acceptable all round, with particularly good sullen body-language from Stefan Butler, playing Billy. The voice he used for Billy was also very appropriate; a petulant shriek that really grated on one’s nerves and made it quite hard to like poor Billy, who, with the exception of training a bird, does nothing really to endear us to him. The rest of the cast also managed to carry themselves in such a way as to convey a despondency and lack of faith in the future that always pervades gritty northern dramas. In terms of the production everything was all very professional, with the notable exception of some rather poor physical theatre that came out of nowhere and didn’t really add anything.
The whole performance, especially the first half, was depressing in a very particular sort of way, and my companion and I were slowly ground into our seats by a heaviness that was not so much crushing as relentless. The director, Nikolai Foster, really did do a very good job of conveying the slow hopelessness and dull pervading misery that is Billy’s life. The question you have to ask yourself however is; ‘is that very particular feeling really something I want to go to the theatre to experience?’