BWW Reviews: ANIMAL FARM / SOCIALISM IS GREAT, Putney Arts Theatre, March 10 2012

Group 64's contribution to the National Theatre's Connections programme is Anders Lustgarten's biting critique of modern China, Socialism is Great. This youth theatre company, based at Putney Arts Theatre, made the bold decision of preceding Lustgarten's 21st century work with George Orwell's 20th century satire of Communist Russia, Animal Farm. The result is two hours of political drama, told through strong plots with two sets of noble heroes and dastardly villains, earnest workers and cynical powerbrokers, gentle idealists and cynical hypocrites. The pace never lets up and two hours flies by.

With the casts aged between 11 and 18 or so, there's variation in performances of course, but even the least effective actors just need to slow down their delivery and project their speeches a little more to be right up to the mark. The best need no advice from the likes of me - they would grace any stage in London. The direction may be somewhat one-paced and static - but these kids are at school all day, so rehearsal time is limited and, with stories as strong as these, the plot is enough to hold the attention without any fancy lighting or perambulations around the vast stage.

I have written before of my fear for the future of drama education in the UK, but companies like this will continue to supply the extraordinary river of talent that populates London's (and other cities') stock of theatres. In doing so, Group 64 will support a major sector of the economy (tourism), a key element of cultural life (the Arts), and - perhaps fulfil a role even more important than those two laudable objectives, give youngsters an insight into the concentrated combination of individual effort, discipline and team-building upon which theatre relies. Life relies on those things too - and one is never too young, nor too old, to be reminded of that.