The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return ★★★★ Summerhall (Venue 26) until 26 August There are many things about this new piece of social realist drama from Chalk Line Theatre and playwright and co-director Sam Edmunds which feel fresh and invigorating, the main element being that it’s a play about poverty and knife crime in a small town (Luton) which manages not to be steeped in sadness, pity or tragedy. The teenage characters in the play, both Olatunji Ayofe’s narrator/lead and his best mate Lewis (Elan Butler) lead hard and uncompromising lives, but they look for the joy and wear their environment lightly. Instead, in this late 2000s-set coming-of-age story, their main concern is how as under-agers they can get served at the local off-licence.
Lakesha (Amaia Naima Aguinaga), who Ayofe’s character fancies, is having a birthday party, and nothing will be more embarrassing than turning up with the kind of spirit old people drink, like gin or brandy, instead of a nice bottle of vodka. Sadly the helpful old bloke they entrust with the job has other ideas. The scene where the young couple flirt awkwardly but intimately is beautifully played, with real humour and tenderness.
In these aspects of the story, the play is marvellously precise and true, painting a portrait of young life where showing off your Ralph Lauren logo carries a proud cachet and a lack of positive outcomes doesn’t stop kids having ambition in life and in love. Here, a father’s stern ins.