The Breakfast Club

This show should attract everyone who enjoyed the 1980s film The Breakfast Club. Itbecame a rite of passage. I’d never heard of it. My generation was the 70s.

Act I introduced us to five disaffected, rebellious adolescents from a private (US) college on eight-hour Saturday detention (my initial response:  ‘Isn’t that illegal?’). We met teacher (and playwright, Drew Jarvis) handing out sheets for his ‘prisoners’ to present their assignment: “What I discovered about myself”; and his captives: charismatic young academic Brian (Jonty Martin); indulged ‘princess’ Claire (Rochelle Nolan); sports jock Andrew (Christo Barrett-Hall); man-mountain bully, Bendor (Jeremiah Wray); and withdrawn, Allison (Liv Wilson), every one of them physically right for their parts. Director, Susan O’Toole Cridland certainly chose her cast shrewdly. And to jump ahead, each one rose to her expectations.

By the end, socialisation by close association of these diverse ‘animals’ into a community won me over. So did their splendid performances as an ensemble – convincing personality transformations to which we could finally identify (OK, I got the underlying message).

It’s impossible to avoid acclamation for the creatives’ contributions also: Gary Farmer (assistant director); Luis Sidonio and Ivana Citakovic (designers); Chris Kelly (lighting designer).

I have just one reservation: detention teacher got only one intelligent written report. He screwed it up and tossed it out (My response was ‘Ouch!’ That report touched on the truth of the 80s!).

Jay McKee