Theatre review: Education, Education, Education

Edinburgh Festival Fringe: The date is 2 May, 1997, Tony Blair has just been elected prime minister and in the staffroom at the local comprehensive joy is pretty much unconfined, despite superficial attempts at impartiality in front of the pupils.

Pleasance Dome (Venue 23)

****

The newly-arrived German assistant, Tobias, is delighted to be there, since he solemnly believes Britain to be the coolest place on Earth; but as he gets to know the hard-pressed staff and riotous final-year pupils, he soon realises that things are not so simple, in a nation caught between wild hope and an undercurrent of despair, where the decade of investment in education promised by the new prime minister will somehow fail to make a difference.

Big themes are tackled, in other words, in this latest play from the Wardrobe Ensemble, backed by the Royal & Derngate Northampton and Shoreditch Town Hall; and although it’s hard to argue that the play – devised by the company with directors Jesse Jones and Helena Middleton – offers any conclusions about the arc of recent British history, it certainly tackles its subject with formidable energy and wit, a blizzard of brightly coloured imagery involving a dream encounter with King Arthur and a superb soundtrack of 1990s classics that has the audience stomping in the aisles, as do various references to 1990s ephemera like the tamagotchi craze.

There are one or two beautifully nuanced performances, notably from Emily Greenslade as troubled pupil Sophie; and there’s a powerful exhilaration about seeing a seven-strong young creative ensemble pitching in so vigorously to the recent political history of England and Britain, even if their approach – for now – is more playful than analytical, and more vividly eclectic than conclusive.

Until 27 August. Tomorrow 5:20pm.