Writer: Kieran Hurley
Director: Ned Campbell
Thirty years ago, in 1994, John Major’s government introduced the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act. It was a wide-ranging piece of legislation, including limitations on the right to protest – but one of its most controversial and notorious moves was to criminalise raves.
It is in this era that Kieran Hurley’s 2012 play Beats is set. Actor/director Ned Campbell takes on the role that Hurley originally performed himself, narrating the stories of several individuals whose lives intertwine. Chief among this is 15-year-old Johnno, an avid SNES video game player and resident of the small Scottish town of Livingston. While he and his friend Spanner attend Johnno’s first rave, policeman Robert Dunlop prepares to be one of the officers who will go on to break it up.
Hurley’s tale encapsulates the sense of community and collective unity that Johnno finds. Dancing with friends, taking his first E, feeling the utter joy at immersing himself in the beats (provided onstage by Tom Snell) – there is a real sense of a young man finding in a muddy field, what his hometown, ravaged by industrial decline and scornful government apathy, cannot offer him.
Campbell, a warm and emotive narrator, also introduces us to Johnno’s mother, as beaten down as her son but missing the release he finds. But it is the contrast with Robert, forever haunted and taunted by the words of his father, a former Ravenscraig steelworker, who proves to be the bigger contrast. Campbell draws delicate distinctions between his characters, never overblowing their differences, allowing Hurley’s script to do that work for him.
The music and Alex Lewer’s appropriately pulsating lighting enhance what is already a compelling narrative tale. Although some references have aged since the play’s premiere – references to student protests about tuition fees would have seemed more present in audience minds in 2012 than in 2024 – some of the parallels between the government of then and now make this revival, 30 years after the play’s events, seem even more relevant. Then and now, a government on its last legs and mired in sleaze was passing legislation designed to oppress young people who wanted to protest.
But in Hurley’s 1994, the mere act of dancing is an act of rebellion. However much a piece of paper in Westminster may try to legislate against the power of collective gatherings, this timely revival of Beats reminds us that community is always stronger when we dance together.
Continues until 27 April 2024
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