Excluded
St Saviour’s Church, London

MACBETH as a teenage pupil excluded from school for fighting and drug-dealing might seem to stretch the suspension of disbelief too far. But, in the sure hands of director Darren Raymond for Intermission Youth Theatre, it works.
 
Revamps of the Bard’s work by youth theatre companies are nothing new. From Michael Bogdanov’s gripping TV documentary Shakespeare on the Estate some 25 years ago to more recent hip-hop productions, the plays have been adapted, peeled back, filleted and served up in a myriad of formats.
 
Raymond’s passion for Shakespeare shines through in a production tackling the issues around exclusion, whose protagonists are all named after Shakespeare’s characters. He immersed himself in the canon of work during three years’ study, not at university but while serving a prison sentence.

During an early session with this young cast, he found that all but two had been excluded from school. Some have been affected by knife crime, others were ex-young offenders or in care.
 
The rawness of those experiences are there from the get-go. Not to give any spoilers but theatre-goers should turn up a few minutes early at the venue, a gothic church converted into an excellent theatre space, where a few youngsters in school uniform are initially unobtrusive.