EDINBURGH 2010: BWW Reviews: SPRING AWAKENING (Pleasance Courtyard)

Let's face it - if you stage a production of Spring Awakening, your audience will be packed, mostly with screaming teenagers who delight in hearing obscenities sung and who snigger at Melchior's mum's first name (seriously, can we just change the script so it always says "Clara" rather than "Fanny"?).

And so the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama are bound to pull the crowds in regardless of the quality of their show. After being impressed with their two smaller-scale productions, In Touch and Closest To The Moon, the anticipation for this was high.

It's slickly directed by Andrew Panton, making clever use of the stage and bringing in much more tension to the hayloft scene than the West End version managed. The vocal quality is evident throughout, and Stephen Arden (Melchior) leads the cast well, with a touch of Daniel Boys about him. One couldn't help but feel for Bryon Martin (Moritz), who was having a bad day at the office with fluffed lines and forgotten lyrics, but he played the tortured soul nicely. I've also been very impressed with Paul Hodge across the course of this week - he seems to have a talent for accents and here he proved that he is a versatile character actor as the Adult Man.

Melanie Bell made a convincing Illse, while Carly Holt as Wendla seemed to have a few tuning problems in her upper range, but that might have been a problem with the sound. In fact, this performance was beset by them - mostly because mics were not turned off when their owners were backstage, leading to conversations being broadcast in the auditorium and a lot of very irritating rustling: frustrating, irritating and unprofessional.

Even so, this is one to catch - worth queuing in the rain for.

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