Anyone who has read or seen the classic British film Kes will carry the image of the cruel end to a boy’s dreams – a hand full of feathers lifted from the dustbin, writes Karen Morley-Chesworth. Robert Alan Evans has taken and adapted this gritty realism to create a beautiful piece of theatre.
Kes is a Theatre by the Lake & Octagon Theatre Bolton production, creating a contemporary telling of this classic novel.
Barry Hines’s hard-hitting story has stood the test of time. It may be set in a South Yorkshire mining town in the 1960s, but the lack of hope and sea of despair teenager, Billy Casper ensures hasn’t gone away.
Bullied at school by the PE teacher and at home by his elder brother, a miner, Billy receives no love or care. His single mother drinks the housekeeping and brings her one-night stands back.
Billy is no angel, but a product of his environment. However, when he finds a young Kestral hawk a glimmer of hope turns into a passion that gives Billy a purpose. The story pulls no punches – and neither does this production.
This is a contemporary interpretation of the book, directed by Atri Banerjee. The trio of performers bring this heartbreaking story to life on the bleak, hard set that captures the emptiness of Billy’s life – until he finds Kes.
It is hard to believe this is Jake Dunn’s first professional stage debut, playing the role of Billy. His performance is faultless and captures the vulnerability of the boy about to become a man.
Harry Egan as The Man – switching in a millisecond from vicious brother to flirting mother, to shop owner and the classic role of PE teacher is magnificent to watch. When Egan brings the production into the aisles of the Main Stage theatre, he is even more terrifying as the teacher close-up. His performance is captivating and brilliant.
The connection Barry has with the silent, beautiful and powerful hawk is captured in the voice of The Singer, played by Nishla Smith. Her haunting, beautiful voice echos around the auditorium, stripped back with no accompaniment, she represents the bird that shows Billy freedom.
Smith opens this production, turning her delicate fingers into claws, hooking onto the top of the set, and looking down into the arena of Billy’s life.
The use of sound, especially the microphones creates a haunting sensation, especially in contrast to the opening silences. The story is uncomfortable to read or watch, and this production with Banerjee’s direction makes you feel, quite rightly, uncomfortable.
This is a fast-moving production, and for those who haven’t read the book or seen the film, it may be difficult to see the original story arch and get the same clarity as from the straightforward, no-nonsense language and style of the previous tellings of Kes. However, this is the telling of a tale for a new generation.
When Billy and his brother stand on top of the set, looking down on their grey mining village and describe how they’d like to wipe out the pit, remove it from the landscape, and believe no one would miss it – it would have been hard to believe in 1960 that’s just what someone would do 25 years later. And despite the horrors of life down the mines, as Billy’s brother describes, the communities Hines captures in this story, and which this production highlights in this unique piece of theatre, did and do miss their pits, and life hasn’t improved for the working, now unemployed men of these villages.
Robert Alan Evans has been faithful to the original novel, but with a new twist that makes this an iconic theatre production.
The sound design and composition by Alexandrea Faye Braithwaite are superb and make this an immersive experience.
This is a beautiful production of a well-crafted tale of the ugly side of life. The grace and beauty are in part down to the movement direction by Jennifer Jackson – almost a contemporary dance in parts. All this is confined to Anisha Fields’s set, the simplicity that creates aboy’s whole bleak environment.
The memory of the grace of the hawk, captured by Smith in her voice and movements, provides hope for Billy at the end of this performance, which I can’t remember feeling at the end of the book or film. Hope is perhaps what we all need.
This production is as powerful as the book and can stand alone as an iconic tale of Northern life.
- Theatre by the Lake from Wed 6 – Sat 30 April
- Find out more and book tickets at theatrebythelake.com or via TBTL’s Box Office on 017687 74411.
