Writer: Marcos Byrne
Directors: Joe Bernstein and Marcos Byrne
From this year’s Peckham Fringe comes Hello My Name Is…, a dynamic short play about the highs and lows of being a teenager with big dreams. It opens on Peckham Rye railway station, where 15-year-old Carlos Murphy is freezing and miserable on his way to school. The whole play is essentially a rapid monologue, with bursts of interaction. Carlos bemoans his early mornings, his tight collars, his limited life, the academic paths he’s being shepherded into when he really wants to be a performer. He’s a kind of teenage South London Billy Elliot.
Writer Marcos Byrne, who also plays Carlos, draws on autobiographical material to present this hour-long insight into the mind of a wannabe-star. His poetic takeaway from the story of Icarus, who flew too near the sun and melted his wax-made wings, seems to be that it’s better to dive to your doom after touching the sky than not to try at all. The idea of naming, highlighted in the title, becomes important as Carlos explores the sometimes-burdensome layers of his identity: Spanish mum, Irish dad, Londoner, actor.
The script won 2025’s Royal Court Young Writers’ Award and is a cleverly constructed fusion of verse drama, rap, physical theatre, and school drama. Naturalistic dialogue and slang mix with GCSE science terminology. It occasionally tips into cliché (“keep your dream alive”, “one day I’ll become who I want to be”). But the show is powered by humour, sudden shifts of register, and an ensemble of brilliant young performers. They help bring Carlos’ stream-of-consciousness alive.
Marcos Byrne is a wiry and energetic soliloquist, charmingly sashaying at breakneck speed from yearning to despair. And he’s supported by five other excellent actors, mostly playing fellow students in dishevelled school uniforms. They also double as passengers on trains and buses, as long-suffering Carlos makes his way to school in a sequence rich in comedy. The bus driver formally announces a diversion, then tells the passengers, “Get over it.”
Joe Bernstein, who also plays Lucas, co-directs the show with Byrne. It’s pacy and entertaining, but could perhaps benefit from external direction too. Abbey Oyetunde, as Deniz, gets lots of laughs with his lively revision methods and crushes on the teachers. Leela Harris as Lamek is compelling, believable and watchable, whether they are vaping or ranking the staff members. Ella Gobern plays Carlos’ mum and a succession of different teachers with panache and authority.
The show is structured round a seven-lesson school day, and each subject has its own dynamic and vocabulary. In between each lesson, “we’re thrown into the crumpled mess”. There are dances, trances and surreal sequences. Byrne’s rhymes, woven into the text so that we almost miss them, are delightful: “grenade/renegade” “CBeebies/see me/you feel me?” His philosophical observations (“everyone on the bus has a unique life story”) suggest a writer with a keen eye for both the ordinary and the extraordinary. But the show’s real strength is the energy and dynamism of the performers. This youthful cast and crew will go far.
Runs until 6 May 2026
Peckham Fringe runs until 5 June 2026
