Review: School Play (Southwark Playhouse)

The head teacher's office is always a scary place for anyone, but no day is more stressful than results day at St Barnabas’ Primary School. This is something that playwright Alex MacKeith would know all to well; his experiences working at a London primary school have shaped his debut play.

Head teacher Jo is feeling the pressure – if the school's results are good enough, she will be able to apply for the Pupil Premium Award, just what the school needs as the catchment area grows and the prospect of another 100 pupils looms. Along with her assistant Lara, she knows every child in the school by name, and each of their specific needs. They're in it for the kids.

Agency tutor Tom is not. Just graduated from Oxford, he's there to make a bit of cash on the side before he heads off to law school. Instead of sticking to the curriculum, he deconstructs the grammar to Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" ("We don't need no education"). The kids love it, but it doesn't help them in their exams. It's what you get when you have people teaching as a "stopgap".

MacKeith tutored after leaving university, like Tom, and he's obviously angry, to the point where it's a little too in your face. Epic rants about the state of the system feel contrived rather than spontaneous. What School Play does do well, however, is highlight the many things that will always make education tough; pupils that need special care, difficult parents, long working days coupled with crumbling personal lives.

In Jo, we see the breakdown of a prim and proper professional into a shrieking mess. We all know it's not easy being a teacher, juggling 70-hour weeks with a personal life, but Ann Ogbomo lets us know just how hard dealing with 200 kids every day really is.

Oliver Dench plays ignorant Tom with a delightful hint of W1A's Will Humphries. He thinks he's doing the right thing but his attitude tips Jo over the edge. School Play shows us that education today is about playing the system, meeting national targets to get government grants, rather than trying to produce world-class thinkers.

It's a bit Waterloo Road-meets-The Thick of It. Under flickering fluorescent lights and atrocious beige carpets, it occasionally feels a little too long, like you've been kept inside during break-time. But Fola Evans-Akingbola makes a decent stage debut. As does MacKeith who delivers a promising first play.

School Play runs at Southwark Playhouse until 25 February.