School play is comical but with serious lesson

A REBOOT of a comedy that has become a school staple comes to the Kenton Theatre next week.

Teechers Leavers ’22 was written by John Godber, from West }
Yorkshire, and is an update of his 1984 play Teechers to reflect the education system today.

Bracknell’s Blackeyed Theatre is taking the production on its first tour, directed by Adrian McDougall.

The play-within-a-play is presented by three year 11 students, Gail, Hobby and Salty, who are on the cusp of change at the end of the school year.

Adrian says: “It’s performed by three actors who purport to be about to leave school for good.

“As a parting gift to their mates and teachers, they put on a play about their final year at school, where they started off being completely disinterested and disillusioned but have their lives transformed by the arrival of a new drama teacher.

“At the beginning they set up the premise as a framing device that we, the audience, are the audience at the school performance, we are their schoolmates and teachers.

“So you meet the three protagonists and all the weird and wonderful characters that make up their school life — the teachers, their mates and the people from St George’s, the posh school down the road.

“John wrote Teechers in the mid-Eighties and it premiered at the Edinburgh Festival. Schools themselves perform it quite a lot and John updated it in the Noughties to bring the popular culture references up to date.

“Then last year he did a major rewrite in a co-production with Hull Truck Theatre for their 50th anniversary celebrations.

“He set it very firmly in 2022, post-pandemic, so it has loads of references to remote learning and sanitising and all that sort of stuff.

“There are references to ‘Partygate’ but, more than that, the tone of the writing is slightly more political — it’s slightly angrier and more spiky in terms of its social commentary.

“All the issues that he wrote about in the mid-Eighties are still relevant, so whether you’re talking about inequality of opportunity between state and private education, or about the marginalisation of drama and all the arts subjects on the curriculum, they’re still very much a thing.

“You’d be forgiven for thinking that it sounds a bit dour but it’s not, of course, it’s incredibly silly, bonkers and fun.

“There are fights in there, there’s a ninja scene and a disco scene and there are elements of farce. It’s really physical, fast-moving and energetic and very funny.

“John makes these political points through the humour and the comedy and there are moments which are quite thought-provoking and sad as well.”

There are just three people on stage. Ciara Morris plays Gail, Terenia Barlow is Hobby and Michael Ayiotis plays Salty, with each actor taking on several extra roles to perform the metaplay, while the playwright’s daughter, Martha, is assistant director.

Adrian says: “In this new version of the play, the drama teacher is female and is Miss Nixon rather than Mr Nixon. I think part of the reason for that was that John kind of had Martha in mind.

“Martha is an actress in her own right and she also has a dance background. She played Hobby in the Hull Truck production.

“John got in touch to say, ‘Look, Martha’s around, would it be of interest to work with her?’ She came in and just did some brilliant stuff.

“What’s nice about having Martha in the room was that you had a fresh perspective and she brought insight to it that I didn’t have. It was also great having somebody who has grown up with John and knows his work really better than anyone.

“It was perhaps slightly scary to begin with — no pressure — but turned out to be a really good decision when we had two actors off sick for a few days each.”

Adrian says the play chimed with him when he first read it because of his upbringing so close to the education system.

He explains: “My entire family are teachers and I can see the challenges that the profession faces.

“My mum was a teacher at a private school and my dad was a teacher at quite a rough comprehensive — she taught at St Joseph’s, the convent school in Reading, and subsequently at the Abbey, while my dad ended up at Ryeish Green.

“So with that contrast between the two, when my mum and dad sat round the dinner table and discussed how their classes had been and their experiences with their respective headteachers, it was really interesting and I got a mix of opinions.

“There are some very funny stories and kids do things that are naughty but also very funny and teachers share these stories.

“My sister is a deputy headteacher at a school in Staines and they’re bringing 50 of their students to see the show, which is quite cool.”

Adrian, who is married with a 10-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son, believes the state education system is far from perfect.

“I think parents should be able to pay for their kids’ education if they want to,” he says. “However, the level of inequality is quite extraordinary, obscene really, and totally unfair. The bottom line is that any child should be able to be educated to their potential and that’s certainly not something we have at the moment.

“Just taking the arts, for example, theatre is not particularly accessible for people from certain economic backgrounds and the ability to do drama in school has been repeatedly cut back.

“It’s not a good thing for the arts and it’s not a good thing for us as a country. Part of the messaging of this play is the power of imagination and creativity but the academy system has made learning and education very transactional in terms of league tables. What that does is commercialises education, it makes it all about results.

“John writes about the importance of the relationship between teacher and student and how something like Ofsted doesn’t and can’t measure that.

“Creating a piece of theatre that’s really about quite a big subject and about a lot of people, using only three actors, three chairs and three tables, that’s the point. You can create this world with very little and I think that’s why the play has lasted.”

The show is choreographed by Scott Jenkins with set design by Victoria Spearing, costume design by Naomi Gibbs and lighting design by Alan Valentine. Robin Traynor is fight director and Maddie Whiffin is stage manager.

• Teechers Leavers ’22 is at the Kenton Theatre in New Street, Henley, on Thursday and Friday, May 18 and 19 at 7.30pm. Tickets cost £24.50 adults, £22.50 concessions (school rates available). For more information, call the box office on (01491) 525050 or visit www.kentontheatre.co.uk