Connections Festival: Chat Back / Hunt

Chat Back by David Judge

Performed by Cavendish School

Chat Back is about the underclass – all those young people who are so ‘bad’, disempowered, alienated, ostracised, and abandoned – that even on the last day of school they still find themselves in detention. We watch a snapshot of the lives of each individual (across a summer holiday of Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday mornings) as they negotiate their way around the obstacles en route to discovering their identity, their economic power or lack of, their lyrical dexterity or lack of, and the meaning of in their lives, revealed through their desires, hopes and fears. The words in this play come thick and fast, in rhythm and rhyme, delivered like a paintball machine gun painting a multi-coloured landscape from a palette that is bleak, honest, raw, exciting, energised and unwavering in its intention to talk truth to power.

Content warning: one reference to suicide.

Hunt by Fionnuala Kennedy

Performed by Trinity Youth Theatre

A group of Belfast teenagers play their version of hide and seek. Their version entails ‘borrowing’ objects from their neighbours back gardens, and ‘dumping’ them at the ‘box’ without being caught, by either the official pursuers or the neighbours who’s gardens they are infringing upon – hence the chances of being caught are twofold. The more outlandish and extraordinary the object and the more difficult to acquire it is, the more kudos you score. The thing is, nearly all of these teenagers are far too old to play this ‘kids’ game, and it’s February, it’s freezing and there’s a storm coming, but Jo wants to impress James, the boy from her new school, he’s not from round here and she’s not from round there.

Their fledgling relationship represents a bridge across a class divide. So begrudgingly the ‘band’ gets back together, for one last game. However, this could be the worst decision of their tiny lives as little do they know that the rumours about the strange, predatory ‘Man in the Van’ are true and the even stranger, dangerous, the one everyone has been warned to stay away from, ‘Mad’ Danielle is back on the block. This is a hunt they will never forget.

Presented as part of the National Theatre Connections 2022 Festival