School is now a thing of your shameful past, the ashes of your hideous blazer and tie has blown away into the atmosphere, the git who bullied you for six years is now vastly overweight with a blood stream full of beer, the pages of your piddling little exercise books are scattered across the route home and your disabling worry of A-Level results has faded to a mocking smirk. It’s great to be away, life is better since you hopped on the last chopper out of wherever you lived previously, and there is surely nothing on earth that could make you consider even glancing behind you.
Except, perhaps, for Simon Stephens’ ‘Punk Rock’, the third instalment of Lancaster University Theatre Group’s DT3 trilogy this term. Directed by Josh Coates, whose accumulation of good will stems from his remarkable production of ’Road’ last year, ’Punk Rock’ will undoubtedly prove to be an stellar example of LUTG playing to the strengths of its members and its audience. Here we have a cast of young people playing a bunch of young people, in an all too familiar setting (a Stockport grammar school).
This isn’t to say that the piece is inaccessible to older theatre-goers, as the director is keen to note; “[Punk Rock was] a play where the majority of the audience truly felt for the characters… you just can’t help but attach yourself to them.”
We have endured a decade of burberry wrapped window kickers being our most prominent representation in British popular culture. At a time where dissent and frustration amongst students has been misinterpreted by the majority of the media as attention seeking and irresponsibility, ‘Punk Rock’ and its cast, of both regular and new faces, promise to offer a refreshing and unbiased representation of student life, as they play out its most prominent aspects.
Lancaster University Theatre Group presents: ‘Punk Rock’ will be performed at the Dukes Theatre (DT3) on Friday the 2nd (19:30) and Saturday the 3rd (14:30 & 19:30) of December. Tickets can be purchased at the Dukes Theatre box office or online, at www.dukes-lancaster.org/punk-rock
‘Punk Rock’ Cast
Jake Walton as William
Fia Spiropoulos as Lilly
Laura English as Tanya
Floss Edward as Cissy
Ross McCaffery as Bennett
Ollie Cumins as Nicholas
Peter Pearson as Chadwick
and
David Helm as Dr. Richard Harvey
Production Team
Director – Josh Coates
Producer – Abbie Jones
Stage Manager – Matt Saint, VP (EWD)
Production Assistant – Toby Cordwell
Technical Assistance – Jack Lea, Katie Gledhill & Saara Salminen.
