Refugee drama’s a lesson in kindness

The Boy At The Back Of The Class (Rose, Kingston) Verdict: Top marks ★★★★✩

THERE’S nothing off-puttingly prim about Alexa, the curious nine-year-old narrator of The Boy At The Back Of The Class.

One of her so-called A-Team, Tom, has an Adam’s apple which makes him look like he’s swallowed a ping-pong ball (which he obligingly spits into the stalls).

Alexa doesn’t know what a refugee is, but baulks when someone calls the new boy at school a ‘filthy refugee kid’. His name is Ahmet, and surely only something terrible can have brought him from Syria, alone, to seek refuge here.

Just as the rounded characters bounce off the pages of Onjali Q. Rauf’s award-winning book, so Nick Ahad’s buoyant adaptation and director Monique Touko’s production has them bouncing around the stage, holding a young audience rapt as they learn more about the silent boy who’s appeared in their class.

The theme from Mission Impossible makes an adventure of the simple task of asking questions. For it’s only by identifying the missing pieces of a life that you can see the bigger picture. A more subtle lesson lies in the play’s use of language. As Sasha DesouzaWillock’s Alexa (above, centre) says, different can mean weird, but it’s not quite the same; usual is another word for boring, but not always.

An excellent cast of schooluniformed adults play the children, slipping into a hat or coat to become a grown-up. Only the Queen — for it is to the humanity of a 92-year-old Queen Elizabeth that Alex ultimately appeals — remains a distant silhouette with a wise, warm voice. And real power.

A clear, compassionate children’s play for today.