The closing words of Jo Clifford's play War in America were "Be kind!"  Now one knows that one has to be cruel to be kind but perhaps not to the extent of the nastiness, cruelty and sado-masochism culminating in death and invasion by terrorist gunmen that had gone before.

We'd gone to see the show to support the excellent scheme for young actors that is The Attic Collective and to get a peek into the Old Royal High School which is threatened with conversion into an unlovely hotel, though it may be be saved from the forces of mammon to become the new home of St Mary's Music School.

Let me share that peek with you.  First the space in which the performance took place.

Then two views of the same room as it was at two earlier points in time. 

And finally how it might look if the hotel development goes ahead

Now back to the show.  It was in many ways an excellent production.  The debating chamber was absolutely ideal for a play about political machinations and the company used it brilliantly and imaginatively.  The cast attacked their roles with vigour but there was a missing element.

The actors delivered the words well and there could be no complaint about their committment but I never had the impression that this was a possible world populated by real people.  There was a distinct lack of tension in scenes where we should have been gripped and, for me, a distinct lack of being engaged by the argument.  Did it seem just too far-fetched or did the writing fail to flesh out the characters sufficiently?  Or, as some of our party felt, did it really need age appropriate actors with a deal more life experience than these young people?

It was nonetheless worthwhile seeing a neglected play (reckoned too offensive by The Lyceum who commissioned it twenty years ago) and I look forward to the Collective's third outing which is The Threepenny Opera in September.