CHILDREN REFLECT THE ADULT WORLD

Author: Pamela Payne
Date: 17/01/1993
Publication: The Sun Herald

IN the English provincial countryside, five boys and two girls live their raggle taggle - scuffed knees and let's pretend - 
lives. It's 1943. Their fathers are away at war. And at home, these seven children fight their own wars, negotiate their 
own peace treaties, bribe, threaten, cajole one another with raw, terrifying innocence. 

With what conviction, and needle-accurate observation these adult performers play children. 

There are scruffy Peter (Richard Roxburgh) and brilliantined John (Mitchell Butel), fiercely competitive and grudgingly 
respectful of one another. There's stuttering Raymond (Robert Willox), all awkward, incipient kindness; and bleak, scowling 
Willy (David Wenham). There are pert and bossy Angela (Kim Lewis) and tough, game, pragmatic Maureen (Lisa Kelly) with 
their self-righteousness. And there's Donald (John O'Hare), the outsider, the poor little blighter with victim stamped 
on his brow. 

Writer Dennis Potter takes this prescribed world on just one afternoon: he tells us a story of universal truth and dimension. 
While presenting us with the world of children, he shows us the manipulations, power struggles, disloyalties, and rare 
instincts for generosity that are familiar from the adult world. 

The difference is that these children have not yet learned the conventions and codes of conduct - the adult version of 
let's pretend - that is called civilised. 

This is a rare, rich gem of a play: funny and harrowingly grim. And it is done great justice.