WitTank presents The School

• William Parish
• 14 August 2013

This article is from 2013.

Runs headlong in the corridors of satire and surreal

Three nice young men present a sketch show about a boarding school. A prospectus for execrable lessons in applying keener analytical faculties at the box office? Nothing about the pre-curtain music, the sparse set or the first seconds of the opening act would suggest otherwise. With a simple and unsettling gymnastic expedient two of the performers emerge as one head-boy monster. It begins to looks like this isn’t a typical year-end revue.

Wittank’s trio race through a succession of public school themed scenarios featuring a large cast of characters worked into a loose plot that skips though time and setting while rooted firmly in class. Ozmanolgu’s throaty alpha-headmaster and Cooper-Jones’s rowing team bore-turned snack addict are stand-out acts on a rota in which roles are interchanged with A-grade precision.

It’s a busy hour punctuated by a couple of dropped catches and one over-flogged study in actorly madness, but the remaining four-fifths runs headlong in the corridors of satire and surreal displaying a facility lesser institutions will find hard to match.

Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 25 Aug, 6.20pm, £10–£12 (£9–£10).