Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Cast: Niamh McCarthy, Jamie Pye, Alice Corrigan, Elliott Davis, Harry Sargeant, Nathan Russel, Stuie Dagnell, James Bibby, Charlotte Larkin, Georgie Lomax-Ford, Poppy Hughes, Jonathon McGuirk, Isobel Davis, Isobel Balchin.

To want to escape the pressures of modern life is completely understandable, the way the world is at the best of times it’s hard to fit in, it’s demanding on the soul to try and keep up with the ever changing and fast, frenetic pace of it all and it’s no wonder that we are urged to find, to discover that happy place in which all our troubles can be forgotten for a while, in which making sense of our own identity is the main priority.

For the Young Everyman Playhouse troupe, making sense of identity is something that very much sits at the heart of their work. The call to arms of the youth of Liverpool via the medium of drama is one asks them to think of who they are, what they want to be and how this next generation can help shape our world for the better. It is a tough expectation to place upon young shoulders but YEP have risen to the challenge time and time again and in their latest venture at the Playhouse Theatre Studio, The Wonderful World of Dissocia, the challenge is met with the very highest of responses.

The entire cast brought this superb piece of art to the very pinnacle of praise, fast paced, absorbing from the moment the lights go down, interesting, witty and full of pathos; if YEP have made the Everyman and Playhouse Theatre proud in the past, for which they have done, then in The Wonderful World of Dissocia they have fulfilled every hope ever set aside for them.

In Niamh McCarthy, the heroine of the piece, the demand was perhaps at its greatest but like the greatest of Eagles she soared and was lifted to prominence and gave such an account of her ability that belief in her character was infinite and full of truth.

With Alice Corrigan shining with the fascination of a huge find for theatre, Elliot Davis in fine form and the terrific interplay between all members of this fine and extraordinary cast, The Wonderful World of Dissocia has to be seen as the finest performance put on by YEP yet, a true credit to both the theatre and to it’s Director Chris Tomlinson.

An excellent performance, stunning and poignant, truly wonderful!

Ian D. Hall.