The Knowledge

Synopsis

Being a teacher means weekends. It means thirteen weeks holiday. It means a secure job in uncertain times. But Zoe doesn’t want to have to rescue her students She doesn’t want to be called a slag She doesn’t want to sleep with the Head of Science. And she doesn’t want to teach a group of kids how to do life. Because that’s something Zoe’s not sure she knows how to do herself John Donnelly's searing play examines what happens when a young teacher goes off the rails in a failing school. Shocking, revealing and darkly funny the writer draws on his own experience working in schools.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 18 January 2011

The interior of the Bush is a blackboard jungle where four foul-mouthed, dead-end Essex kids give the new young English teacher, Zoe, a rough ride and a first-hand lesson in how not to cope with moronic behaviour.

Can things really be this bad in secondary schools? And can you believe that the teacher, on trial for her job, would bring a blue prosthetic penis to a rowdy citizenship class, with a handful of flavoured condoms, to demonstrate safe sex before behaving drunkenly, and intimately, with one of the fifteen year-old pupils who turns up at her flat after a fight?

The answer, I’m afraid, is yes to these questions. John Donnelly's new play has the terrible odour of complete authenticity. I taught in one such school, briefly, many moons ago, and plays such as Barry Reckord’s Skyvers and Nigel Williams’s Class Enemy have exploited the shocking truth that the wittiest, quickest, and often the cleverest, pupils are languishing on th...

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Latest User Review

rds. - 1 February 2011:

Stunning, but yet again WOS still haven't deleted reviews for previous productions?! Anyhow, KNOWLEDGE was a terrific example of brilliant ensemble playing from a top notch cast. The four younger members being extraordinarily convincing. The play shows us a bleak and incisive look at the world of state education. God knows Michael Gove should see this play before he starts tampering with the education system, not that it would necessarily help him? The big question this play asks is what to do with unruly pupils, the ones who so disrupt classes they influence the behaviour of other pupils and in so doing destroy any semblance of authority a teacher might have? It is a big question and a hard one to answer. The play doesn't have that answer, but it throws the subject under a ferocious spotlight. A terrific new play touching on a burning issue and another example of why the Bush rivals the Royal Court as the most important theatre for new writing in this country. KNOWLEDGE should get a transfer....

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