REVIEW: CASSIE AND THE LIGHTS at Southwark Playhouse Borough 3 – 20 April

‘Touching, warm and funny’ ★★★★

When a mother goes AWOL in a bowling alley, she leaves behind Cassie (16) and her two younger sisters, Tin (10) and Kit (7) Cassie’s mum has disappeared before and by all accounts struggles with parenting, not helped by dodgy boyfriends, debts and other unnamed pressures. But this time, she doesn’t come back, and Cassie takes the reins. Euphemistically “on holiday” when word gets around about the parentless trio, social services arrive to save and protect the three sisters who are advised to “bring a favourite toy.”

Based on interviews with care-experienced children and set in West Yorkshire, Cassie and the Lights, a touching, warm and funny three hander examines, over the course of a year, the emotional toll on abandoned, uprooted children and young people. Cassie’s perspective is the most vividly portrayed by Alex Brain. A talented media student and the primary caregiver, she feels the pressure, guilt and anxiety most keenly as she discards her dreams to shield her siblings from an escalating situation and gnawing reality.

This isn’t a play where social services get it wrong or dreadful things happen to the children. On the contrary, they end up with a loving, middle-class couple called Mark and Alice who care for them with sensitivity and patience and introduce them to couscous which makes a change from eating beans out of a tin or living on biscuits. Their concentration and schoolwork improve. In a sense, the play presents the best possible outcome but also illustrates the psychological wounds inflicted on those caught in the crossfire when parents fail and the state steps in.

Alongside the broad accents and some funny (and sad) moments, there is a live musical accompaniment composed by Imogen and Ellie Mason, which is an acoustic pleasure. Charlie (Charlotte Schnurr) a whizz on the keyboards has a tempo for every emotional state. Heart strings are twanged, and hackles raised. Lighting is used creatively as darkness and light form twin pillars of this story and the set is imaginative, with piles of transient, pastel-coloured suitcases that double as receptacles for experience, location or memory using video and objects.

Audiences are treated to strong performances from the three players as the conflict mounts about who will care for the children permanently. In the beginning, the too-cute mawkishness of the younger characters seems cloyingly saccharine but eventually, the situation disarms, and you remember the young women on stage are meant to be children. This play reminds us how families can fracture, break and rebuild. We all need someone to remind us to “wash our hands, breathe and love each other” but that person can be manifold, a conclusion that offers hope not despair.

The charity partner of Cassie and the Lights is Become who aim to empower care experienced children and young care leavers to bring change in their lives, the care system and society.

Photo credit: Claire Bilyard

CASSIE AND THE LIGHTS at Southwark Playhouse Borough 3 – 20 April

Box Office https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/cassie-and-the-lights/

Created and directed by Alex Howarth

Cast: Alex Brain (Cassie); Helen Chong (Tin); Emily McGlynn (Kit); Martha Walker (Swing)

Voiceovers by: Bethany Antonia (Jasmine); Louisa Harland (Alice); Oli Higginson (Mark); Wendi Peters (Teacher); John Thomson (Lawyer)

Original Scenic Design: Alex Howarth; Set and Costume Design: Ruth Badila; Composers: Imogen Mason and Ellie Mason

About the charity: https://becomecharity.org.uk/

Reviewed by Nilgin Yusuf