Theatre review: Little Baby Jesus

All change for the JKM Award, which for several years has been based in the Young Vic's smallest studio space with productions getting very short performance runs, and now not only moves to the larger (albeit much less central) Orange Tree, but also runs for a full month as part of the theatre's main season. In addition its scope seems to have expanded in terms of the "classic plays" the winning directors get to choose from - the prize's definition has always embraced comparatively recent work but Little Baby Jesus only dates back to 2011. It's a canny choice as its writer Arinzé Kene had a recent hit with Misty, but you can also see why it would appeal to director Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu as a vehicle to showcase and hone his talents: A three-hander that uses a storytelling style to show the moments a trio of teenagers each felt they grew up, it offers a lot of opportunities to play around with style.

Rugrat's (Khai Shaw) narrative dominates early on, the self-proclaimed class clown whose jokes don't slow down, but which are increasingly disguising the way he feels less comfortable with his best friends' immaturity and taste for cruelty.

He very slightly knows Joanne (Rachel Nwokoro,) who goes to another school, but the three stories won't really intersect much except near the end; much of her narrative focuses on a comic story at the launderette where she works, when she met a boy she would later go out with. Their stories sow the seeds for darker places they're eventually going to go to, as does that of Anyebe Godwin's Kehinde, a boy considered mature in many ways but who comes across as rather sweet and naïve. He tells us he's got a fixation with mixed-race girls (perhaps as a reaction against his Nigerian grandmother, whose racist treatment has left her with a literally violent response to lighter-skinned people,) but it starts to become apparent his feelings towards girls are mainly influenced by a borderline-unhealthy idolisation of his twin sister.

Fynn-Aiduenu has his cast tell their stories in a playful way even when they take darker turns; the conceit is that any of the central characters can decide it's their turn to resume their own story, during which they control which supporting characters in their narrative the other two play. The reason they allow each other to do this is that they're not always ready to share the next stage of their own stories and need the break to build up to it.

All three actors show a lot of skill at commanding the audience's attention while narrating, as well as at embodying other characters, although Nwokoro seems particularly able to transform herself, turning into a velociraptor to play a schoolboy preparing for a fight, and bringing such glee to Rugrat's malevolent best friend she reminded me of a gremlin. She also uses the conversational style (her confrontational character has already had some thoughts to share on the audience's outfits) to take no prisoners when the show's disrupted, not even pausing when a phone went off to snap "I'M TRYING TO HAVE A MOMENT HERE!" Tara Usher's design puts the actors in a tarmac circle they gradually seem more able to escape, although the odd design for the school badge is a bit distracting - I think it's meant to reference a moment between Joanne and Kehinde but it does look a bit like a masonic symbol or the Deathly Hallows. Early on there are times when Fynn-Aiduenu's production drags slightly, but it does build movingly to the moments the characters feel they've irreversibly slipped into adulthood.

Little Baby Jesus by Arinzé Kene is booking until the 16th of November at the Orange Tree Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ali Wright.