See Thru Sam

The Adventures of See Thru Sam, although it marks another variation in Random Accomplice's approach to theatre, captures the vitality and character of the company as they enter into their tenth year. Writer/director Johnny McKnight and producer/performer Julia Brown are both intimately involved in the creation of the piece - recently, McKnight has been playing away, mostly with pantomimes but also in the NTS' Appointment with The Wickerman, leaving Brown at the helm for the Double Nugget tour.

It aims at a younger audience than previous RA plays - the Big Gay Trilogy and Small  Town had a far less innocent vision of sexuality and while McKnight has talked about how his own life influenced the character of Sam, it's clearly not another semi-autobiographical number. Indeed, the depiction of school and home life makes See Thru Sam far closer to the issue-based plays often aimed at adulescents.

Fortunately - like David Greig's two plays for young people, Yellow Moon and The Monster in the Hall - McKnight's take on the struggles of the young adult is driven by character, not issue. There's a slight suggestion towards the end that Sam does suffer from some form of mental ill-health, when his aversion to green becomes pathological and he takes drastic steps to escape a vicious, but childish bully. And the plot is driven by Sam's attempts to cope with his parents' death: yet the script is far more interested in the way that the mythology of superheroes can provide a sense of identity to an outsider, and in the details  of the teenage crush than any grand statements about grief or alienation.

Teaming with an illustrator allows Random Accomplice to animate Sam's expansive fantasies: the use of video projection places Sam in a world that he can constantly manipulate through his imagination. A simple blank wall becomes isolated light-house, classroom or, in the romantic scene, a bedroom full of potential and promise: Sam is literally moving through a world that shifts according to the rules of comic book art.

Sam is a sympathetic hero, if sometime inpenetrable: the scene where his uncle tries to deal with Sam's inappropriate behaviour is at once recognisable - the inter-generational conflict, the mutual lack of respect and understanding - and disappointing, since it doesn't give the uncle much reason for his worries and is set, oddly, in the school. While McKnight is appropriately serious about the gap between Sam's fantasies and the reality of his parents' death, the final scene is undermined by having had Sam narrate most of the action: if death is seen as irrevocable in the case of Sam's parents, it is sentimental, even unimportant, in the finale.

Yet McKnight's gift for comedy, and a fast pace, ensures that See Thru Sam is engaging and entertaining. It struggles with resolving the various deeper issues, but thrives in moments of evocative detail - fear of the bully, that first crush, the doubt of the teenager, the bonds of friendship. It has the qualities expected of a Random Accomplice production: the appropriate adventurousness of format, cheeky humour, energy and charm. And it adds another level to their versatility.

That Festival Date...