The North Wall Theatre and Awake Projects, a Swedish based arts company, collaborated to create tonight’s play. Song of Riots is an unusual piece of theatre inspired by the London riots of summer 2011, and woven together with strands of fairytales, folk music, and the poetry of William Blake. This is perhaps not the most obvious combination, but directors Christopher Sivertsen and Lucy Maycock manage to combine the themes to create a story that is both ancient and modern, traditional yet fresh.

The main narratives of the play are those of two boys, the Prince and Lucasz. The Prince is a fairytale boy, coddled by his parents, the over-protective King and Queen; while Lucasz lives in London, the son of a poor Polish immigrant mother and an absent father. Each boy is forced to leave home, and their paths cross on the streets of Peckham at the outbreak of the London riots:

‘the city is burning’.

The Prince and Lucasz represent a generation of discontented youth. Blake’s poetry, his ‘innocence and experience’, is perfectly relevant to these boys, who are brought together by a shared innocence and playfulness (throwing a ball together, making music, and dancing), but whose experiences (drugs, prostitutes, violence, and sleeping rough) tie them together and ultimately end in destruction. This play thoughtfully deconstructs the violence of that hot summer and offers some understanding of the rioters – their actions and motivations.

The playful, experimental nature of the production was one of my favourite things about it. Performed against a plain screen hung in front of some scaffolding, there were few props; effects were achieved using lighting and handfuls of coloured powder flung into the air. Hanna Bjork and Maria Sendow coordinated the music which drove the performance – haunting folk songs and poems over cello refrains. The acting and dancing were physical and vibrant – a wonderful way to portray a difficult subject. This is a tale which needs to be told to generate more understanding about why young people rebel.     ★★★★☆     @BookingAround      17/04/15