Review: Winter of Our Discotheque.

Winter of Our Discotheque is set in the fictional boarding school Hastings, a cross between St Trinians and Lord of the Flies. Laurie, recently expelled from Eton under mysterious circumstances is begrudgingly adopted by Alex and Mama, the Head Girl.

This is the first time this play had been performed: York student Tess Humphrey wrote it when she was fifteen and revised it at twenty. She also directed it, along with Daisy Hale. Overall, the script was excellent. At times it seemed unconvincing, such as the strong sense of Noblesse Oblige, inverted towards ‘The Aristocracy’, which at one point goes so far as to demand threats of murder. Though this may have been to emphasise the character’s delusions, it still felt clunky and didn’t sit well with the rest of the play. However, the rest of the play was beautifully balanced; at times very funny, yet deeply challenging.

The first half is a series of short, almost unconnected scenes, leaving the audience unsure of what exactly going on. Rather like your first week in a new school where everything seems odd and you’re really not sure how things work. This worked brilliantly to slowly develop the characters, and the cast played on the skilfully, with Rhys Hayes barely leaving the stage for the entire first half. Hayes played a convincingly manic Alex. Lauren Reed provided much of the comic relief as Mama, but managed the gradual revelations of her character subtly and endearingly. James Dixon was not originally cast as Laurie, but the actor previously in the role dropped out, as he didn’t feel confident with the demanding scenes required of him. Dixon filled the breach magnificently, Having been unconvinced by his role as the inspector in The Physicists, I was astounded by the pathos and nuance he brought to this role. Alex Gordon also deserves a mention for a professionally executed turn as Nicolas- a brief, but technically difficult, role.

At one point during the evening Mama declares: “it makes you think how safe we are”, yet this is a play that is anything but safe. It tackles suicide, mental illness, substance abuse, and transvestism head on; yet retains a lightness of hand that stops it feeling like a PSHE lesson. Tess Humphrey said she wrote the play while working in a class for sufferers of mental illnesses, and this contributes to the eerie sense of realism in a frequently surreal play. It really hits its stride in the middle, where the characters’ nuances become manifests. Sadly after this clever and nimble writing, the ending felt almost a disappointment. It wasn’t exactly a cop out, but nor was it worthy of the careful development of the rest of the script.

Despite these flaws, it was nonetheless a brave and exciting new play; and I think the audience were aware that they were witnessing the debut of something rather special.