Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Cast: Aaliyah Garrett, Abigail Whiteside, Adam Gannon, Amber Williams, Anna Tremarco, Ashley Kaufman, Charlie Healy, Clara Mbirimi, Elle McEvely, Ellie Hale, Ellie Muscat, Grace Hillier, Harry Hughes, Holly Haines, Isabelle Simpson, Jake Warner, James Douglas, Jennifer Lowe, Joe Fay, John Readle, Jude Stephenson, Katie Kaufman, Kayleigh Lindon, Leah Whiteside, Lewis Jones-Davies, Lillie Jo Irons, Matty McCartney, Michael Ellison, Mikey Hall, Molly Madigan, Morgan Hughes, Natasha Riley, Niamh Fay, Olivia Gore, Passy Douglas, Poppy Cowell, Ryan Broadhead, Shannon Smart, Susan Segar, Tom Douglas.
It is in the imagination and words of youths that the greatest truths are told. Adults may retain that unique gift but somehow, unless they are nurtured within the arts, they become embroiled in to a world that abuses the sense and to which politics comes calling. It is the power of dreams that drive us all but dreams can turn sour, they can be poisoned and corrupted, the natural sleep of youth, the many hours of sleep they seem capable of, is a buffer to a life many of us hanker for. It is no wonder that adults become disillusioned and their dreams become tools for making money and exploitation.
For The Royal Court Youth Theatre, dreams are everything, like their counterparts in the Unity and Everyman, they thrive on the aspiration and in The Dream Team Search For The Sandman, that inspiration is played in all its glory for the audience to see and in amongst the superbly choreographed interpretative dance, the allusion to very real concerns of what is seen as parental control in the 21st Century and the ambition dripping off the entire cast in a sweat filled afternoon in August, the dream team come of age as they fulfil their part in what has been a tremendous combined effort by all involved.
The point of dreams is to aid the mind in making sense of reality but when that sense of authenticity is skewed, when the sleep won’t come and the effect of that it realised, do you go with nature or do you head to the chemist, the doctors, to get aid in that pursuit. When you have to resort to what can be seen as drugging your children to get them to sleep, when the Sandman has been kidnapped and there can be no rest for anyone, it makes the audience hopefully understand what has happened in many places round the world where pharmaceuticals make the children more like zombies than the generation that might actually be the ones to save us from our destructive folly.
The Dream Team Search For The Sandman is an entertaining way of getting a very important message across, that young adults are not like those who have been ground down to believe that money and science are the solvers of all ills, sometimes you just truly need to sleep on the problem to understand the solution.
A beautifully choreographed performance, everybody behind the Royal Court’s Youth Theatre and the performers on stage deserve the biggest round of applause possible.
Ian D. Hall