CHRISTOPHER SMITH Willy Russell's drama strikes chords in this performance by Gresham's Youth Theatre.

CHRISTOPHER SMITH

The choice is just right. Willy Russell's drama of a group of disadvantaged Liverpool children on a day out to the Welsh coast strikes chords in this performance by Gresham's Youth Theatre, making its eighth annual contribution to the festival.

There is poetry as well as pathos, reason as well as rhyming, and the bare dark stage provides every incentive for group acting as well as for a succession of individual moments in the spotlight.

Nothing works better than the whirling excitement on the roundabout when all the fun of the fair is conjured up by figures gyrating across the stage.

Director Simon Clarke, who also takes the role of the dictatorial Mr Briggs, interprets the text with skill, cleverly switching from group episodes to cameos of personal involvement, from comedy to potential melodrama.

t Our Date Out was performed at the Garage Theatre.