Young soldiers play out the shameful excesses of youth

DAYS OF SIGNIFICANCE, Lowry Quays, by Paul Genty

ROY Williams’ highly acclaimed play purports to deal with the alienation felt by young soldiers returned from Iraq, boys ripped from their teenage lives of binge drinking and casual relationships to become desert fighting men, then afterwards returned to ordinary life.

Whether this Royal Shakespeare Company touring production shows an accurate portrayal of what happens when boys grow up quickly in the Army I cannot say: every case is different and presumably depends on their experiences.

But in most respects, Williams’ play is about the morality and behaviour of the group before and after the tour of duty (which actually affects only two of them, Ben and Jamie), and the ways “days of significance” encourage that final push to adulthood.

In 110 short, sharp, unbroken and often ugly minutes we see the terrors of the Daily Mail generation writ large: feral youth off to hell in a handcart; the binge-drinking, hard-fighting scourge of modern society, urinating and vomiting over each other; the young, aggressive, “easy” girls off their heads on Friday-night boozing and the young yobs who need a dose of the Army to put them on the straight and narrow. Except that, as we see here, it doesn’t.

Authoritarian protestations and warnings about binge-drinking, casual sex and the other ills of young society pass right over the heads of our characters.

Their stories are changed by the death of one of them and the marriage of another — in other words, young people grow up when it’s right for them, not when authority says so.

Written and rewritten in the mid-Naughties to take account of changing times in the war story, the play is a funny, excruciating, vile and compelling (usually all at the same time) look back with attitude.

But while its premise is more sociological debate than anything, there is no denying the way director Maria Aberg has turned the text into amazing theatre.

The crowd of 16 youthful actors — not what you might expect of the “RSC” marque — is a vibrant, energetic bunch of characters who look like they have come straight off Yorkshire Street on a weekend night.

The group is raucous, disgusting, passionate, occasionally very stupid and always vividly portrayed by this extraordinary ensemble, led by Sarah Ridgeway and Joanna Horton, and Toby Wharton and George Rainsford.

If you are over 40 and your hair is blue, stay at home...