UNLIKE Peter Pan, we do grow up.
Junction25 recently said goodbye to nine core members because they were over the upper age limit of 18. If the group's leaders, Jess Thorpe and Tashi Gore, were caught between excitement and apprehension – could the new young recruits respond to the challenge of devising material? – then those of us who have watched Junction25 creating visceral, honest performances since 2005 were similarly conflicted.
Figment kicked any niggling doubts well into touch. Yet again the essence of the piece is personal anecdote and opinion: this time the starting point was childhood and how our world view changes as we grow up – all served up with a throwaway humour (often bordering on the unsentimentally forthright) but also shot through with the kind of truthful immediacy that reaches out to stir one's own memories and tug at heart and head alike.
Like Barrie's story of Peter Pan, the score of pyjama'd figures on-stage were letting their imaginations fly into realms where fantasy and reality blur and intermingle. Jess Wood, perched throughout atop one of Tramway's brick "wings", believed she could – and would – fly. Jack claimed his cuddly toy monkey was part of his ventriloquist's act, but Monkey simply voiced the unfathomable questions that adults rarely have answers for. Wee Joe unwittingly – and hilariously – banjaxed young Ethan's belief in Santa and the Easter Bunny, Rose had Clare squirming with embarrassment as supposedly friendly questions raised the spectre of snogging and sex. Fears were voiced by some, hopes and aspirations by others. If the spirit (and musical soundtrack) of Peter Pan was in the air, the magic dust was provided by Thorpe and Gore. Readers, Jess "flew"... brave, bold, brilliant stuff.
HHHH
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