@pubtheatre1 Review by: Paul Towers, 09 November 2016
Layla’s Room by Sabrina Mahfouz
A Theatre Centre production with Shanice Sewell, Alex
Stedman and Emma White, directed by Natalie Wilson
Upstairs @ The Western, 09 November 2016
“a beautiful rollercoaster of a teen life.”
In an attempt to get inside the mind of a modern inner city
teenage girl author Sabrina Mahfouz trawled through a national survey of a
thousand UK teens. The result is Layla’s Room the often exaggerated world of a
digital girl growing up in this fast paced, sometimes skewed society of pay
gaps, thigh gaps, pop stars, selfies that are Photoshopped and all the angst these
produce.
Layla lives with her gay mother, her brother and her mother’s
girlfriend in a tower block. The prospect of moving to a ‘normal’ house with
just two floors and a garden fills her with dread. As she packs up the last few
boxes of her stuff she reflects on the events that lead to this upheaval.
The set, designed by Ele Slade, is an ambitious geometric wire frame hung with line drawings of
the view from the tower block. The floor reflects this Japanese-influenced
design and provides an ideal base for the choreographed moves required to move
the simple boxes around to make rooms and locations. Credit must also go to
sound designer Elena Pena whose unobtrusive background noises easily anchor the
various locations and also provide a reinforcement of various plot points.
Shanice Sewell as Layla leads the production as the
confused, ambitious but ultimately bullied teen of the title. Alex Stedman plays
all the male roles with an assuredness that belies his years and Emma White has
her hands full with various female characters that again are a credit to her
youth..
Mahfouz’s script is a beautiful rollercoaster of tears,
tantrums, comedy and crisis that make up the average teenagers hormonally
challenged life.
Layla’s Room is on tour. Full details at http://www.theatre-centre.co.uk/
Upstairs at The Western
http://upstairsatthewestern.com/
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