BASSETT by James Graham
(Bassett premièred at the Soho Theatre in March 2011 as part of the National Theatre Connections Festival). Locked in at lunchtime by a teacher who has had enough, the students of Citizenship class at Royal Wootton Bassett school are frustrated. Tensions run high as another repatriation of fallen British soldiers is happening along the high street and this one’s more personal than most. As their confinement grows more claustrophobic, the pupils begin to see things differently, asking questions about conflicts, their country, and themselves.
(Wootton Bassett was granted royal patronage in March 2011 by Elizabet II in recognition of its role in the early-21st-centurymilitary funeral repatriations, which passed through the town. This honour was officially conferred in a ceremony on 16 October 2011 – the first royal patronage to be conferred upon a town (as distinguished from a borough or county) since 1909.
(Suitable for ages 14+ as the play contains strong language and images)
PUNK ROCK by Simon Stephens
Punk Rock is a play by the British playwright Simon Stephens which premiered at the Royal Exchange Theatre Manchester in 2009. The play concerns a group of private school sixth formers during their A level mock exams.
William Carlisle has the world at his feet but its weight on his shoulders. He is intelligent, articulate and very mixed up. In the library of their fee-paying grammar school, William and his fellow sixth formers are ruled by academic expectation while navigating the pressures of teenage life. They are educated and aspirational young people, but step-by-step, the dislocation, disjunction, and latent aggression is revealed, with disastrous consequences.
(Suitable for ages 14+ as the play contains strong language with sexual references, and some gunshots)
A double bill presented by Richmond Shakespeare Society Young Actors Company
Directed by Katie Abbott