Wonder Boy, playing at York Theatre Royal this week, proves you don’t need a loud voice to leave a lasting impact.
Let’s rewind, if I may, to the days of COVID, in which caged-up theatregoers craved for fresh new material as they approached a post-lockdown world. Well Ross Willis was ready with his own antidote, as he published Wonder Boy – a fresh new play with a youthful approach to showing the beauty of difference.
Wonder Boy is at York Theatre Royal from Tuesday 29 October to Saturday 2 November.
With excellent direction from Sally Cookson, we were able to answer the well-publicised question ‘What use is a boy who can’t say his own name?’ Invaluable, I say – as 12-year-old Sonny offers more to his clouded world than simply words, with a vulnerable heroic charm that can only be admired.
Whilst Sonny may seem like the typical boy on the verge of adolescence, he faces much deeper battles, struggling to be heard due to his prominent stammer. However, with support and determination, this story enables us to watch him journey through each and every fractured frustration and simply persist.
The staging was clean and simplistic, a Brechtian’s dream, ready to be transformed by the cast themselves. There was no need for elaborate staging to build the foundations of each scene as this was done superbly by the entire company.
I especially enjoyed the projection of Sonny’s imagination, as Captain Chatter (Ciaran O’Breen) brought an animated approach to storytelling which resulted in a wonderful opening sequence. This cemented the audience’s understanding that they were going to witness something special.
Hilson Agbangbe portrayed our complex protagonist Sonny and he was nothing short of sensational – an actor with an incredibly bright future ahead of him. Every emotion conveyed throughout his transformative journey felt authentic, and there was no doubt that the entire audience cared deeply for him from his very first appearance.
But perhaps no one could ever care as deeply as Miss Wainwright (Eva Scott), who was a delight to watch. Whilst her teaching approach was bold and even unconventional at times, her heart was indisputably in exactly the right place. She represented everybody’s favourite teacher, or equally the teacher you’d desperately wished you’d had.
There is no denying that Sonny’s relationships are the beating heart of this story, and this rings true for his relationship with mischievous misfit Roshi.
Naia Elliott-Spence was wonderfully natural within her role, befriending not just Sonny but the audience in tow. Not only was her one-sided conversations the epitome of comedic chaos, but her vulnerability towards the end of the play showed the true depths of her talents; I would have loved for her story to have been explored further.
Finally, completing our fabulous five was Meg Matthews as our villainess Miss Fish, also multiroling in her softer role as Mum. These two roles were incomparable which is a sign of a job well done.
The talent onstage is matched wonderfully by those behind the scenes, with incredible sound and video design by Jonathan Everett and Tom Newell (Limbic Cinema). This is how you perfectly utilise a screen onstage, offering accessibility with its timely transcription, but doing so where it only enhanced the play’s entire dialogue. With communication being the focus, it felt necessary to have had this ongoing visual narrative accompanying each scene.
So whilst this story may focus on a boy with a stammer, the message stands for so much more and I urge any school, college or theatre group to visit and allow it to both entertain and educate the next generation. Alas, whilst the language and circumstances may be of a youthful disposition as a reluctant fully grown adult, I couldn’t have loved it any more and the message was just as prominent.
Grab your tickets now for a heartwarming play that celebrates the beautiful acceptance of diversity. Tickets start from £15 and are available via the York Theatre Royal website.