Vera Vera Vera

Synopsis

The boy who comes back from a war far away in a wooden box is glorified and called a hero. As the funeral plans are made on an estate in a small Kent town, his siblings squabble over who he was. Maybe the fanfare isn't needed for this heroic martyr.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 27 March 2012

A triple threat of Vera Lynn explains the title of drama school graduate Hayley Squires’ vivid first play, yet another promising talent off the rank in this year’s Young Writers Festival.

Vera Lynn’s war-time songs – “Wish Me Luck,” “When I Grow Too Old To Dream,” and others – cover the scene changes in two parallel stories of aggression and attack.

Schoolboy Sammy (Ted Riley) prepares to fight a playground adversary while flirting with his possible girlfriend, Charlie (Abby Rakic-Platt), in the lunch break. Charlie has jam sandwiches and a copy of Romeo and Juliet, a play Sammy summarises for her (“I’ve seen the film, anyway”) as modern gang warfare.

Their three scenes are punctuated with acrimonious preparations, three months earlier, for the funeral of a soldier killed in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

The dead man is Charlie’s cousin; hi...

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Latest User Review

HGem - 20 April 2012:

I went to see this on the 12th April, it was so hyped up by a friend of a friend that I literally was desperate to see it. Ten minutes in I had a sinking feeling that this was a mistake. It wasn't cutting edge, moving or even 'written with conviction'. The swearing was ridiculous. The audience laughed at the brutality of it but it was an uncomfortable laugh - like when someone tips a coffin precariously at a funeral. I heard from my friend that it's been transferred to Peckham now so lets only hope that now that the hype has worn off the play disappears somewhere even more unheard of than the local theatre. Awful, patronising, cringe worthy and I hate using these words but in the third scene it was like a christmas special of Eastenders ( an x rated one of course). Well done for bringing up a topical theme but this wasn't a good play and the cast and the team working on it must have used up their supply of friends and family tickets by now surely!...

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