Lad- Brunswick Inn- Derby

Lad is an immersive pop up  play by John Booker, set in a pub, and here, performed in a pub.it tackles masculinity and identity. Coincidentally I saw fellow East Midlands playwright’s James Howard’s production of Punch in Nottingham last weekend which covers similar ground.

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Old school friends Jack and Luke  have found their lives diverging, one going to university, the other to jail. Do old ties still bind? Or have their new experiences reshaped them? Had the lads originally understood their own identities? Had they done so, but were merely projecting an identity for themselves- to fit in with how they thought they should be seen?

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There is much to cram into a forty minute play. Jack and Luke,( Kurtis Lowe and Kwamé Kandekore) are the protagonists, England vs. Spain, Euro 2024 Final, the backdrop. The tension off the pitch is as great as it is on it.

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Pubs are strange places where intimate, yet transient conversations occur, Booker captures that perfectly. Supporting England provides that sense of belonging collectively against individual vulnerability and doubt. As an audience we are part of that, same room, same pub, same discussion. Throw  in class, race, and masculinity in a post industrial world, and the audience is faced with   much to contend with.

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What the play succeeds in doing is striking up an important  conversation, well told, well written and well acted. Inevitably the more profound and far ranging the questions asked , so the limitations of forty minutes bite.

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The second world war  proved that women were equal in the workplace. The 1960s/70s rise in feminism occurred as  traditional male roles and hierarchies were being dismantled by de-industrialisation while improved educational opportunities for women simultaneously saw mass encroachment on traditional male white collar jobs and roles. Where do today’s lads fit into all of this? How does the remote sense of belonging and identity of the internet fit into all of this? Can it be resolved over a pint?

Kurtis Lowe and Kwamé Kandekore perform superbly in this intense two hander sat at a pub table. Secrets are revealed, and the sympathy of the audience vacillates as their story unfolds, tautly directed by    Danny  Bailey, dramaturgy by Nic Wass . The dialogue is authentic, the banter   funny and on point.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

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Thus, Lad is a beginning rather than an end.  It feels like one act of a larger entity. I suspect that Booker will explore this further in future pieces, both he and the subject matter deserve him  to do so.