Flashbang wallop what a city - teenage coming-of-age punches home

Cast of Flashbang. Photo courtesy of Proforca Theatre Company.

Flashbang written by James Lewis, directed by David Brady presented by Proforca Theatre Company at the Belgrade Theatre, B2 Venue, Coventry from Thursday 7 – Saturday 9 May.

Review by Annette Kinsella.

Which wise philosopher first observed that “we are all just two or three bad decisions away from Armageddon”? History does not record their identity, but I’d be willing to put money on it being someone who once witnessed my friend Suzanne in 1993, following a boozy night on snakebites in the Dog and Trumpet, peel away from our squad, scale the outside of the multi-storey car park in Coventry city centre, requiring rescue by a kindly policeman - all in borrowed platform shoes. Thankfully, on that occasion, there were no casualties. Apart from my black suede platforms (see pic). I may forgive, Suzanne, but I’ll never forget.

Reviewer's shoes back in the day!

But, as always, I digress.

Proforca Theatre’s Flashbang, at the Belgrade Theatre, tells the story of another group of childhood friends whose choices do not end quite so harmlessly. Set in an anonymous landscape of terraced suburbs, neon nightclubs and scuffed inner-city kebab shops,

Writer-director David Brady’s play follows a gang of boys – lothario Jay (Charlie Jobe), leader Ryan (Alex Hill), muso Andy (Haydn Watts), madcap Deano (Ben Watts), and scally Billy (Dan Nashu) -  from playground alliances and football pitches, through to adolescence, adulthood and looming fatherhood, until the group is thunderstruck by sudden tragedy.

The lads enjoy the local music scene. Photo courtesy of Proforca Theatre Company.

What follows is less of a linear drama than a collage of shared memory. The production leans on overlapping narration, with characters drifting in and out of one another’s recollections as though no one can quite remember where one personality ends and another begins. It is an approach that reinforces the play’s central idea: that these men are not exceptional or symbolic, but gloriously, painfully ordinary. They are every lads from every town, products of football terraces, banter and cheap lager.

So much feels achingly familiar. The play captures with uncanny precision the strange rituals of teenage friendship: casual insults masking affection, incomprehensive rituals elevated to sacred importance, deep loyalty hidden beneath relentless mockery. One clubbing sequence is depicted with such pinpoint clarity I could almost smell the heady mix of stale beer, Lynx Africa and cigarette smoke in the air. Elsewhere, Ryan’s emotional collapse is handled by Hill with real sensitivity and grace, a refreshing change from the snarling alpha-male manosphere spreading through common culture recently. And the snapshot of the gang on New Year’s Eve, when Andy’s premonition of the year to come cast long shadows, genuinely sent shivers down the spine.

Flashbang at the Belgrade. Photo courtesy of Proforca Theatre Company.

That said, there is fat in the dialogue which occasionally needs trimming back – parts were slightly overblown and indulgent. But when the writing lands, it comes in hot. Brady has a terrific ear for the poetry of ordinary speech:  half-philosophical pub conversations and desperately funny evasions where British men attempt to communicate emotion without ever admitting that they are doing so.

What makes Flashbang particularly affecting for a Coventry audience is the way its “anonymous” setting resembles the city itself. The suburbs and social clubs are straight from a George Shaw painting, where sodium-lit melancholy rubs shoulders with the smudgy green of municipal parks, and a soundtrack of local lads The Enemy seals the deal. This spoke to my brother, recently turned 60, who delighted, misty-eyed, in the nostalgia that so resembled his own formative friendships and experiences.

The cast of Flashbang. Photo courtesy of Proforca Theatre Company.

What lingers afterwards is the capture of a teenage coming-of-age that could belong to any town or city in the UK. Its environment is special in its ordinariness, and its friendships unique and yet recognisable in their everyday commonplace. To badly misquote another city son Philip Larkin, it reminds us that “something, like nothing, happens everywhere” – and emotional microcosms exist in the places people barely notice.

For tickets: https://www.belgrade.co.uk/events/flashbang/