Nishla Smith silences the theatre. She appears from on high and squats quizzically, fingers gripping the top edge of Anisha Fields’s wide white set like talons. Her expression is still. Poised. Falcon-like. A stretch of her arms and she fixes her gaze once more.
Down at stage level, her movements are mirrored by Harry Egan, a multi-role-playing narrator, crouching over a cardboard box containing remnants of the emotionally deprived childhood of Billy Casper.
As Smith makes a two-note call – “Bill-y” – Jake Dunn sidles on, his animal defences up. He is the hopeful hero of Barry Hines’s sad story, cautious, recalcitrant and tender, the boy who sees escape in nature but is forever tied down by a life of brutality.
In the adaptation by Robert Alan Evans, this is less a slavish version of the novel than a poetic evocation. Fragmented and fluid, Atri Banerjee’s superb production flits in an out of focus like a wheeling bird of prey. Intense microphone address morphs into bullying physical encounter and switches again into brief moments of rural respite.
We get the famous scenes of sadistic teachers, bird training and misplaced gambling bets, but not necessarily in the order we expect.
All the while, Smith circles, the embodiment of the kestrel, under the precise movement direction of Jennifer Jackson. She becomes only more ethereal as she sings dreamy renditions of The Girl from Ipanema and It Might as Well Be Spring. Her voice is exquisite, a symbol of unreachable beauty.
If we don’t feel the full force of Billy’s innocent appreciation of the bird, we certainly feel Smith’s absence at the culmination of a bold and adventurous ensemble production.
At the Octagon theatre, Bolton, until 2 April. At Theatre by the Lake, Keswick, 6–30 April.
