The concept behind this production was brilliant and ingenious: Take one group of 20-somethings and send them back to school. This production is a three-hour disco at the Braidwood Centre, which has been wonderfully transformed into a school. It is paired with Back to School (a show earlier in the day, which places 20-somethings in the school environment during a normal working day). I went to this event with an open mind and I was well rewarded.
The Braidwood Centre is an excellent place for this event. A lollipop lady led us into the centre via a shutter that she raised from the main door, thus creating in the audience the impression that we were pupils who got on the wrong side of their teachers a little too often. This, in turn, meant that we were more inclined to involve ourselves with the concept and mess around with both our ‘teachers’ and our fellow ‘pupils’.
This concept was filled with nice little touches that were clearly developed from the mind of one who had worked in a school before. Miss Wade, the head mistress, mostly leads proceedings, hosting the disco and Prom Queen and King competition. She was the progenitor of this project and hopes to see it spread throughout the world. There was a life drawing class, as well as a dark room, and a ‘lift to success’, which was a wonderful idea.
My main criticism with this event is one that the performers and organisers could not really help. This problem is the unknown that is the other people in the audience. As with any interactive, audience-participation event, you are bound to have some members of the audience who are either less willing to get involved or who are merely abhorrent people. Such events can be ruined by the inclusion of merely one or two weak links and while this is not directly the fault of the company, it is a problem arising out of the concept and it is therefore inherently flawed. Still though, if you’d like a fun, inclusive night before going out on the tiles, this is the place for you.
