When reading in advance that as many as 100 young and very young budding performers were taking part in this Bristol Old Vic Young Company production, it conjured thoughts of a primary school playground or the scrum outside Oxford Circus tube station. What I had no inkling of was just how ambitious a project this was, and to what heights it could scale. This is quite possibly the biggest theatrical surprise package of the year.

Writer Silva Semerciyan likes to play with the dark side of life. This dystopian tale draws heavily from classics such as E M Forster’s short story The Machine Stops, 1984, possibly the end of Disney’s Pinocchio, where children are tricked into slavery by the lures of a shining fun palace.

Here a 500-year old machine dominates a subdued city, supposedly providing for all its needs by producing the very air its inhabitants breathe, and by producing a sinister fertiliser that is traded for profit. “The machine must never stop!”

Children are plucked from the population to perform plays at the city’s Theatre Royal for the workers who keep the machine working. Rehearsals start at 6am in the morning, with three performances put on each day, the last finishing at 2am. Officiated over by the scary Mrs Cowardine (Bethan Barke) and her mad dog theatre master Clockface (Matt Landau), these junior thesps become little more than galley slaves. Meanwhile, forces for social change are stirring political unrest. With strong echoes of the suffragette movement, campaigning souls come amongst the audience to hand out leaflets to implore us to end exploitation, child labour and abuse, and restore free education.

Enter heroine Addie King, played by Sadie Gray. Hoping to save her injured dad from becoming fodder for the machine, she is persuaded to join the theatre so she can send money home to prevent his threatened demise. Along the way she will initiate rebellion, but be steadily drawn to joining with the powers that be by her overwhelming need to provide for her father, before a final confrontation with the machine itself.

All the lead roles were strongly represented: Landau put in an eye-catching performance as the cruel but vulnerable Clockface; Gray (as Addie) always commanded the stage, while Richard Ainsley as Benji, the on-the-run sailor who knows the awful truth about the machine, George Descaillaux as Addie’s Dad, Bethan Barke as Mrs Cowardine, Hannah Hecheverria as Addie’s Mum Tabitha, Rebecca Jeffrey-Hughes as the Inspector and Maddie Coward as ‘suffragette’ Miss Hyacinth, all put in stand-out performances bringing real depth to the characterisations. The rest of the ensemble often astonished, not only with brimming confidence but also with the sophistication they brought to a complex, multi-layered and politically charged play.

Throughout, a very accomplished six-piece band used harp, trumpet, guitar, piano, drums and double base to create both sophisticated mood music, uplifting riffs, and at the play’s heart, the mechanical beat of the great machine itself.

Thanks to some breathtaking stage direction from Lisa Gregan and Matt Grinter, and using the very effective three-tier stage design from Max Johns and atmospheric lighting by Tim Streader, this Bristol Old Vic Young Company production hit the ground running and never stopped. Two hours went by in the blink of an eye. With a multitude of scenes to get through, not once did this ensemble falter with their entrances, exits or with their words. But that would be to patronise them. Never mind getting the basics right, this went way beyond – this was terrific acting and stage craft, an absolute credit to all those involved with this admirable outreach project.   ★★★★★     Simon Bishop    4th August 2016