Reviews

One 11-year-old boy has hit another in the face with a branch, knocking out the victim’s teeth. Like civilized adults, the parents meet to try to agree on an appropriate outcome, but there’s nothing quite like a good spray of vomit to warp the thin veneer of polite society. Yasmina Reza’s glorious creation God of Carnage is all about keeping cordial while trying to repress a boiling mud geyser of emotion. That undercurrent of unspoken feeling keeps bulging out until finally it erupts to riotous effect.

Sir Tom Stoppard is one of Britain’s most famous – and prolific – theatre writers. He has written for the stage (Arcadia), screen (Shakespeare in Love, The Enigma) TV and radio. According to Britannica, Stoppard “is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation”. His plays are complex and complicated in both themes, characters and settings.

Once I had marvelled at the set and properties, I willingly suspended disbelief, relinquishing all to the roller coaster of the action. Even those with the most hardened preconceptions of William Golding’s novel could not fail to be gratified in this production.

One thing we all know from experience is that teenagers do not fully consider the consequences of their actions. So, what if those teenagers were also from powerful, privileged backgrounds and following a well-known grooming ground to becoming tomorrow’s leaders via the private school debating team? Written from her own experience in the world of debating, Emmanuelle Mattana was only 20 years old when Trophy Boys was first produced.