• The Production
• Cast and Crew
• Reviews

The Production

This musical show follows the annual outing of the 'Progress Class' of a school in a poorer area of Liverpool in the late 1960's. Liberal teacher Mrs Kay is determined to give these underachieving children an enjoyable day to remember, whilst authoritarian teacher Mr Briggs is there to insist on discipline and education. The class has it's leering, smoking louts, it's pathetic waifs and it's "I've got a crush on sir" teenage girls, but all ultimately respond to the caring approach of Mrs Kay. Just for a while it seems that Briggs too has a heart but let's not be too hasty about that.

The dialogue sparkles along in that typical Willy Russell style and the songs are cheeky, chirpy and sometimes very moving.

With the school coach taking the party from place to place, the locales include Conway castle, a zoo, a fairground, a cafe, a shop and a beach. With such a variety of settings, and to maintain the essential pace of the piece, we played with no scenery and utilised just a handful of props on a flexible staging area against black backing.

The young cast worked hard to interpret the characters and create the locales in song, dialogue and movement, and a highly appreciative audience were carried along by the brilliance of the writing and the sheer cheeky enthusiasm of the piece. All in all a very successful result and a great source of joy for twenty-six young actors.

Cast and Crew

Reviews

Jo Scriven in The Ross Gazette 22nd February 2006

COMBINE a cracking script, deft direction and a group of enthusiastic youngsters and you have all the ingredients for really good day out, or should that be evening out.

The story of a young dedicated teacher taking her group of remedial pupils for a day out, not to be educated, but just to see that there is more to life than the having babies or going on the dole, made for a thoughtprovoking evening at Goodrich Village Hall.

The Bare Bones Theatre Company, made up of youngsters aged between 7 and 14, put on a terrific performance and the whole audience really enjoyed the sometimes humorous, sometunes moving production, directed by Dave Baldwin

This really was a group performance as it was the interaction and choral singing that kept the production moving but a few characters stood out for special mention.

Clare Symonds as Mrs~ Kay and Chris Kear as Briggs played adult characters with maturity and consistency. Caitlin Oshornes's performance and solo 'I'm in love with Sir' was excellent but the one actress who really stood out with a very moving solo was Sarah Lester.

However the bus driver, Jack Campey and zoo keeper James Bonehill also proved that size doesn't matter when your acting skill is large.

The 'bad boys' and, the bored girls also really added to the enjoyment of the show and all in all it was a very enjoyable evening

Bare Bones Youth will be taking a shortened version of Our day Out to the County Drama Festival at The Courtyard on March 18th. The group is the current holder of the award and with this production should definitely be in the running for an award this year too.