Evaluate: Directions For A Teenage Armageddon, The Garrick Theatre

Evaluate: Directions For A Teenage Armageddon, The Garrick Theatre

Writing PR summaries of performs should be an extremely troublesome job, as it’s good to make the manufacturing sound fascinating, intriguing and interesting to a whole bunch of hundreds, if not thousands and thousands, but on the identical time it’s a must to be sure to don’t give away the entire plot or spoil any unpredictable twists or turns.

So I’ve a whole lot of sympathy for whoever has such a job, however I don’t suppose I’ve ever felt like a manufacturing was fairly so completely different from what was steered than Directions For A Teenage Armageddon, whose PR blurb reads “After her sister’s premature demise by a Yorkshire Pudding, a humorous teenage misfit begrudgingly joins a flailing scout group to assist her navigate the kicks and punches of adolescence with various levels of success.”

Now this isn’t utterly inaccurate, but it surely doesn’t even start to the touch upon the tone and the themes explored within the play. Sure, lead character Eileen (Charithra Chandran) does initially declare her sister died due to a Yorkshire Pudding that she herself had made, however inside ten minutes we be taught that in actual fact her sister was anorexic and died of a coronary heart assault after refusing to eat stated meals. However what follows is an exploration of the ways in which grief, and the trauma of dropping a beloved one, impacts a household. Whereas Eileen attending the Scouts is used as a tool to discover her character and her social life, solely a few of it’s humorous, and that is largely a piece about ache, about misguided parenting, and about the best way that mates might deeply harm an individual.

I’m very conscious that Directions For A Teenage Armageddon is kind of efficient due to the unpredictable instructions it takes, so I received’t touch upon the narrative additional, however these searching for a frothy, gentle comedy drama about teenage life received’t discover it right here. And the play has one different downside too, in that whereas it’s nicely structured and thought out, a bit of an excessive amount of of the script borders on cliché. Numerous the metaphors are overly acquainted, and whereas the dialogue sometimes shines, all of it too typically it sounds a bit of just like any cleaning soap opera that has run out of steam.

There’s a lot to love about this play. Charithra Chandran is astonishing all through, in a component that makes huge calls for upon an actor, which she greater than meets. Regardless of my reservations in regards to the script, this needs to be an award-winning piece of performing. The story it tells is one which must be heard, and one which must be instructed extra typically. Chandran makes it a much more memorable and highly effective piece than it in any other case might need been, which makes it really feel an actual disgrace that the script didn’t undergo no less than yet another draft.

Author: Rosie Day
Director: Georgie Staight
Set / Costume Design: Jasmine Swan
Lighting Design: Rory Beaton
Video Design: Dan Mild

Directions For A Teenage Armageddon is taking part in all the things Sunday at The Garrick Theatre till April twenty eighth.
Additional data and bookings might be discovered right here.