Theatre Reviews - "The Walking Class"

Storyline

"The Walking Class is set in March/April 1984 - nine months after a Conservative landslide in the General Election. Nigel Trotter, a seventeen year old pupil at a Birmingham Comprehensive School plans a solo walk to London to protest about continuing bleak prospects for youth unemployment. His school friends persuade him to lead an "under-nineteen only" protest march, which, in a rally in the centre of Birmingham, gains tremendous popular support as well as media attention. Beyond Oxford, Nigel's plans for the protest march open up a split between him and the teenagers who have flocked to join it."

The first production of this play was mounted by the Birmingham Youth Theatre in 1983 at the Midlands Arts Centre from the 18th-21st October. Andrew Tiernan played a supporting character called Bong who provided the main comedy element of the play. In the words of friend and fellow cast member Andrew Brown: "He stole the show".

A second production was then held at the Birmingham Repertory Studio Theatre in January 1984. And later a third was shown at the Shaw Theatre in London in 1985 as part of a National Festival Of Youth Theatres which went on to tour the Midlands area. This time Tiernan took the lead role and, although only twenty at the time, he gave a performance described by Andrew Brown as: "very powerful...already showing what an actor he was maturing into". This was the last time AT performed for the BYT as he then became involved in studying drama full-time.

The Birmingham Youth Theatre was founded 1971 by Derek Nicholls and ran until May 1987. It was supported by the City of Birmingham Education Committee as a leisure-time theatre education project for teenagers. Its base was the Midlands Arts Centre, and its perfromances were given, in the main, at the MAC and the Birmingham Repertory Studio Theatre. The Walking Class was its twenty-seventh production, in its twelfth year of life.

All information shown here has been provided through the kind courtesy of Andrew Brown.

Many thanks Andrew B!

Andy's Character

Bong ('83/'84) & Nigel Trotter ('85)

Andy's Content Rating

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© 1983 - 1984