Matthew Warchus is the new artistic director at The Old Vic and his tenure gets off to a good start with Tamsin Oglesby’s debate on what sort of education we want for our children and how can we make it fairer for all.
The debate has three separate strands: one features the frustrated parents, another features a research committee, and a third, in a series of monologues, shows a comprehensive school teacher in the classroom. The play is held together by a student refugee who is grateful for an education which would have been denied to her in Pakistan because she is a woman and the wrong class and caste.
Warchus has turned the whole debate into a lively theatrical experience. Nikki Patel, making her stage debut, is impressive as the refugee. Rob Brydon plays the teacher and he has a fine speech when he is at his laptop and typing an apology to a parent. Lucy Briggs-Owen is very funny as a pushy middle-class mum. The scenes with the committee are amongst the most entertaining with Joshua McGuire (Eton educated) and Brian Vernel (state school educated) at loggerheads and liable to behave like naughty children.