The Ashton Group and Forum 28
Apprenticed Actors Company

present

ASBOy
by
Sarah Miller

DT3,
The Dukes Education Centre,
Moor Lane, Lancaster.
6 October 2006

ASBOy was something of an unusual Friday night treat. Directed by Rachel Ashton, and played by four young actors, Andrew Denison, Hermione Pearson, Chloe Ward and Damian Rose, it is the story of ‘ASBOy’ Kyle (Damian Rose), who is not only banned from certain places and associating with certain people but also from articulating certain words – until 2010.

One of these words, rather oddly, is ‘grass’ (as in ‘you up’ rather than ‘is greener on the other side of the fence’). Being not only bored but frustrated by this, Kyle seeks alternatives in the local library’s Thesaurus, where to his delight he finds words such as betray, inform on, and, best of all, squeal. (This is clearly more fun than school, where Kyle was “never in anyone’s class long enough to finish a book”.)

In the library Kyle meets Staci, the granddaughter of one of the elderly women he is fond of tormenting. Studying the Vikings, she unwittingly helps him stay away from the estate by taking him to Art Galleries and museums, and the story inevitably ends happily.

One reading of the play is that, in Kyle’s case, being ASBOyed seems to have worked, in that it gives him a little time and space to move on, though it is not the purpose of the play to make any general claims of this nature. This piece of community theatre is a sympathetic portrayal of people in Kyle’s situation: despite the young people’s mindless and ultimately self-defeating refrain of ‘He’s/She’s got it coming’, we also see Kyle’s perspective on elderly people, i.e. that they hang around in groups, looking people like him up and down in an intimidating manner ….

The set is based on Monopoly boards, heavily graffitied. These allow us to see Kyle continually self-monitoring where he can and cannot go on the estate, never forgetting the penalties for transgression (remember the ‘Go to jail’ square?). There are also some large multi-functional children’s building blocks, and an oversized house of cards, acting as reminders that these young men and women are little more than children, still, and of the fragility of their social relations and structures.

The four actors (and when they take a bow at the end you are surprised that there are only four, so deftly do they change accents, costumes and roles), despite occasional woodenness, deliver their lines convincingly. The fast-paced delivery of the dialogue is impressive, given that this is their first experience of working professionally.

DT3, the Dukes Education Centre (a refurbished Primitive Methodist church, just up the road from the Dukes itself) made for a good ‘studio’ space for this production. Infrequently used for performances in the past, this is to change, starting with three performances of Edward Bond’s Passion (by the new Dukes Youth Theatre) scheduled there very soon (October 14-16).

ASBOy was performed only once at DT3, on Friday October 6. However, you can also catch it at Action Transport in Ellesmere Port on 10th October.

Click here for more images of ASBOy.

Jane Sunderland
7/10/06