THEATRE REVIEW: Junkyard ★★★★

Junkyard

Bristol Old Vic

Saturday 4th March 2017

My dad grew up in Bristol during the 1970’s - in fact he was born in 1971, and even though I have never lived in Bristol, I feel a very strong connection to the city due to the arts scene, to which has been very familiar with me the past couple of years. Junkyard, set in the year 1979, is set in Lockleaze, where we are introduced to some of the ‘troubles’ pupils of a local school, and though I mention troubled, this is varied due the families they have grown up in, or mental issues that some of the residents are associated with. This production of Junkyard is so poignant and moving, as well as incredibly funny, because it is based on the true story of ‘The Vench’, an adventure playground which was made 30 years ago and still open today.

As we are first introduced to Rick, a male teacher with the objective of setting up a team to help build this playground, we are unsure of what his motive is, but his dashing looks and mannerisms attract the mothers of the pupils so much that they allow their children to help form the structure of the park. The characteristics of these young children are incredibly well developed through the incredibly talent bunch of actors who portray these roles; Erin Doherty for example plays Fiz, a pupil who lives with her mum (Lisa Palfrey) and pregnant sister Debbie (Scarlett Brookes), and the way Erin brings Fiz to life on stage is so thrilling and captivating to watch, and I never realised just how much I loved the bristolian accent until watching all these characters ooze the language on stage.

The other element of this production which I loved was how the element of serious to comedy were perfectly combined to create the songs in the production and the excellent timing from the whole company, which felt very moving at times but filled with so much laughter from the lyrics penned brilliantly by Stephen Warbeck, which fitted so beautifully in with Jack Thorne’s emotion script which nearly had me choked up at the end as the characters spoke about even though they had grown up to become adults, the playground adventure will always bring them together as a community.

In recent times where we have seen cuts to the arts, it’s productions like Junkyard, which tells the real life story of the heart of a community, that brings to the forefront the act of kindness and sense of unity in this industry through the passion that is in Jack Thorne’s script.