Luton has one of the youngest populations in the country. Playwright Sam Edmunds gives us a teens’-eye view of the town in the 00s with this arresting account of a house party, from pre-drinks and banter to bangers and dazed aftermath. Co-directed by Edmunds and Vikesh Godhwani for Chalk Line theatre company, it brims with boisterousness while vividly capturing a sense of waning nonchalance in late adolescence amid the daunting approach of adulthood.
And talk about making an entrance: playing best mates, Olatunji Ayofe and Elan Butler bum-rush this show, whooping up the audience. Along with Amaia Naima Aguinaga, who provides a handful of supporting characters, they continually pop out from behind the brick wall blocks of Rob Miles’s set. The soundtrack’s beats are accompanied by chest thumps and banged fists, with Matteo Depares’s sound design adding extra pace to the hour.
