Alex MacKeith's debut play is a comedy-drama that punctures a situation pressured to
the point of breaking:
School Play is set in the office of a primary school
headteacher and looks at a crisis in education - in particular the almost surreally
wrongheaded system in which state schools need to show their students improving if
they don't want to lose the very resources that make improvement possible. Lara
(Fola Evans-Akingbola) has had to put her teacher training on hold ever since her
father got ill, but is keeping her hand in by working as secretary to headteacher Jo
(Ann Ogbomo.) Jo's received the students' SATs results and they're decent but not
good enough to get the school any additional money next year - and she's just found
out they'll be expected to take on an extra 100 pupils as well.
