Tristan Bernays’ tale ducks and dives through the Saturday night experiences of Teddy and Josie, teenagers in a 1950s London still bearing the scars of a decade before but one in which an exciting, if dangerous, new scene is emerging. Coming out of a time of real austerity – 14 years on rations – the subculture of Teddy boys and girls spoke of rebellion, liberation and the determination to shake up the social order, all soundtracked by the newly revolutionary music of rock’n’roll.
Joseph Prowen and Jennifer Kirby crackle with real electricity as this pair, caught up in the excitement of something new but also increasingly tangled in something much darker. Their incipient romance is sparky and sweet, lending the later twists a poignant gravitas, but real atmosphere comes too from Dougal Irvine’s songs. They don’t just sit alongside the action but thread their lifeforce through the story and the show as much as any traditional score.