punkplay at the Studio, Southwark Playhouse, SE1

reviewed for The Times, 14 September 2016

Someone, somewhere thought this show was very clever. It’s about punk, see, and the problem with punk is that it’s a rebellion against the rules. Except, as the teenage Mickey finds out the hard way, proving himself to be the ultimate punk kid seems to involve an awful lot of rules itself.

The playwright Gregory S Moss tries to square the circle with sexual epiphany, hallucinatory ODs and a climactic revelation about why his cast are wearing rollerskates. It doesn’t explain much.

Moss’s play might have worked as a love story. Mickey’s guide into the punk labyrinth is hard-fronting Duck, a young classmate on the run from his father and the threat of military school. Hiding out in Mickey’s bedroom, they discover porn, experiment with haircuts and brainstorm band names (“Shameful Secrets?” “Sounds like a tampon”). There’s vulnerability here, and truckloads of homoeroticism, but it’s bogged down by the unvarying pattern of Duck’s bullying and Mickey’s dorkishness.

Meanwhile, the director Tom Hughes clutters the stage with kitsch and concept. The rollerskates come with the territory, but did we need party balloons spelling out the title or cod-Brechtian placards labelling props? (Not all props, mind. If you’re going to go for a gimmick, stick to it.) The effect is to infantilise further, even trivialise the lives we are observing. Meanwhile, Sam Perry (Mickey) and Matthew Castle (Duck) are awkward enough, but lack the versatility to break out of their grating dynamic.

For a love letter to punk, punkplay seems to despise the teenage dirtbags it promises to save. The decision to keep the whole cast wobbling on rollerskates is, the meta-plot reveals, a deliberate act to undermine them — and there’s precious little dignity in the equation to compensate. And there’s no sense that rejecting algebra might be a viable long-term strategy.

Only Aysha Kala, hypnotic as the cool girl next door, gives any sense of knowing what she’s playing at. A year on from her Bafta Breakthrough Brit award, Kala deserves better than playing a bit-part moll to 90 minutes of dreary bromance.

As for the rollerskates, here’s where punkplay really tries to be clever. The final scene is a lecture in phenomenology intended to blow your minds, man, but it feels tacked on and try-hard. Rather than a rebel inspiration, Mickey closes the show looking more like a fantasist philosopher, living a two-a-penny freshman fever dream. More Sophie’s World than Bad Religion.