Herons

Billy, the 14-year-old hero of Simon Stephens's soulful new play about aimless adolescents, spends his time fishing in a lifeless East End canal.

Fifteen-year-old Scott, the school bully, and a couple of his skinny cronies offer passing menaces, while Billy's wrecked Dad occasionally pitches up to offer scrambled wisdom. Trying to put behind him an incident involving Scott's jailed elder brother, things are coming to a head for Billy who simply waits patiently for his paltry catch of two or three tiny tench a day. Also dealing with a violent and sentimental mother, Billy finds himself drawing ever closer to Scott's girlfriend, Adele.

There's a fantastic amount of f-ing and blinding throughout Stephens's play, but the diverse characters show amazing sensitivity as they try to figure out their parents, defend themselves against threatening hoods and allay their psychological anxieties. Otherwise, the play lacks a strong through-line and slithers along like the murky inner city canal of its setting. As a result, the fascination of Stephens's strongly atmospheric writing remains entwined in the surprising poetry of his na?ve yet hard-bitten dialogue.

Simon Usher's direction could do more to clarify some of Stephens's ideas and themes by paying closer attention to the rhythms of the language and hitting the sudden violent climaxes harder. Moreover, Paul Russell's lighting design is

incomprehensibly changeable and does little to illuminate the play's inscrutable structure. Meanwhile, Antony Lamble's design featuring a bench and a graffi-tied wall is smart and simple, but too clinical for the play's elemental struggles. The most impressive feature of Usher's production is the acting of his young cast. Billy Seymour as the brooding hero gives a proud, finely tuned performance pitched between childhood and maturity. Robert Boulter sometimes lacks the savage unpredictability of a notorious bully, but Stuart Morris and Ryan Winsley as his two lackeys, are hilariously deluded deadbeats. Nicolas Tennant as Billy's staggering Dad is a pitiful wash-out and Jane Hazlegrove as Billy's Mum is disconcertingly doting. Finally, Lia Saville's Adele cuts a fascinatingly inquisitive and precocious soulmate to Billy, rounding off a cast displaying the sort of savvy the play celebrates and laments in equal measure.

Herons (Dirty Little Secrets Season)