Our theatre reviewer, Hannah Hobson, shares her thoughts on Teechers Leavers ’22 at Hull Truck Theatre.
On the same night that Hull Truck announced the renaming of their studio space, the ‘Godber Studio’, a reworking of John Godber’s 1984 play Teechers had its press night on the main stage. This production goes by Teechers Leavers ’22 and is a modernisation of its predecessor, augmented with covid commentary, digs at the Tory government and a litany of Olivia Rodrigo songs in its soundtrack. It is unapologetically current. With the strain on state-funded education becoming more evident by the day, there could not be a better time to revive Teechers, even more so as a fitting addition to Truck’s anniversary season.
I must admit some bias here. Teechers has long been my favourite of Godber’s plays, a fizzy-pop analysis of class through education and all through the eyes of the students. It was difficult to get through any sort of drama education in the East Riding of Yorkshire without at some point being asked to participate in a production of it, besides which, the 2010 revival was the first straight play I saw in a theatre. There is a nostalgia surrounding this production which I’m sure I shared with many in the audience. It would have been easy to lose this in the translation to the modern day or for the updated references to feel forced.
For the most part, however, the production avoids this. It feels like a new play and the characters of Hobby, Salty and Gail are just as grounded in their modern-day reality as they were in 1984. I will say, however, that the interaction with covid in the storytelling occasionally confused the three-year timeline for me. I struggled to align our place in the plot with the place the characters claimed to be in the pandemic. It is also true that Teechers has maintained some of its parent-play’s quirks, namely the habit of having its characters spell out the play’s themes in dialogue, something made more frustrating by how crisp and clean the storytelling is everywhere else in the play. All in all, however, it is a fresh take on the play as much as it leans on the brilliance of its ancestor.
The characters of White Wall Academy are brought to life by three fantastic young actors. As Gail, Purvi Parmar is quietly extraordinary, shining especially as Miss Prime and hopping from character to character with ease. Levi Payne provides a similarly chameleon-like performance as Salty, with some fantastic emotional turns within the play. Hobby is played by Martha Godber, whose physicality in the role makes good use of Freddie Garland’s movement work and who feels entirely at home within the material. As a whole, the cast perfectly capture the mood of the play, managing to make something so slick feel effortless. They trade characters easily, sometimes playing three or four parts all within one scene without ever losing the audience and with impeccable comic timing.
Garland’s movement direction is one of the play’s highlights, covering scene transitions easily and integrating the world of TikTok into the play. In addition, Mark Babych’s use of a minimal but characterful set (from Caitlin Mawhinney) to create various different classroom environments from desks and benches, is masterful. There’s a real feeling of vitality from the company, a smooth apotheosis of storytelling which I must credit to Babych’s command of the stage as a director. There’s a simplicity to the staging but a deep understanding of how young people are taught drama and the ways they integrate techniques into their work, something integral to the make-up of the play. All this is furthered by the poppy energy of Jessie Addinall’s lighting design, meshing both with the play’s action and with Charlotte Bickley’s sound design brilliantly.
There is no denying that Teechers Leavers ’22 is an excellent night out at the theatre and a great reinvention of a play so widely performed, speaking to this contemporary moment in education and society. Truck has presented an excellent piece of theatre, slick, energetic and relevant. See it as soon as you can at Hull Truck Theatre until Saturday 11 June.