THE BOY AT THE BACK OF THE CLASS- ARTS THEATRE

The passionate little girl at the centre of this sometimes moving play is surely Alexa . How Sasha Desouza-Willock manages to relay every nuance of a nine year old with such fluency is a minor miracle . We really believe she is the sensitive child who sees the real life of the Boy at the Back of the Class. She understand him, listens to him and leads the charge for his salvation.

Her lovely widowed mum Priya Daydra is a heavenly model of motherhood . She inspires Alexa with her kindness – and also plays the super-elegant form teacher at school Mrs. Khan. An aura of goodness surrounds both roles which is so warmly reassuring for a child audience. Vital because the story of the Boy is a desperate one. He is a Syrian refugee. Alexa feels his pain and learns by questions just what has happened to him.

Her ‘gang’ is great. Josie is the sports mad centre, a role done with popular gusto by Petra Joan-Athene – coming out of the show she seemed to be much talked about by the audience. Abdul-Malik Janneh is Michael the rule-taking comedy role (and also a wonderful taxi driver) Gordon Millar is a personable Tom.

In fact all the actors are terrific children and convincing adults. Even the challenge of the wordless Boy himself Ahmet played by Farshid Rokey is excellent.

And of course the theme is heroic. A lonely refugee gradually begins to find acceptance among the children in the classroom most of the children warm to him, he is among friends .The only dissenter is a louche slob. He doesn’t share the whole hearted acceptance the other children show. And he is the only one of them with a strong east London accent and street- slouchy mutinous manner. Everyone else has an RP delivery and a goody-two-shoes take on strangers.Unfortunately this class bias extends to the school staff. The one ( I think meant to be elderly) teacher wearing incongruously a mortar board is a scarcely disguised racist who even more improbably is sacked before all the children by the right-thinking Head. He/she is from Yorkshire.

The second half, Ahmed tells his story of his flight across Europe where he lost track of his parents and his sister drowned. The little gang devise a solution to Ahmed’s plight. The children have a conference as to what they, as nine year olds can do. Suggestions fly about. I personally was with the idea of writing to the newspapers about Ahmed and his lost parents. But no, they land on the solution -’The Queen’. It was toe curlingly embarrassing to watch the script depart down a Christopher Robin rabbit hole with this fantasy trip to Buckingham Palace- complete with Mary Poppins’ Bert-style cab driver who takes them for free plus an encounter with security as they break through the Guards’ barrier - all completed with trip home in a Police car.

What began as a sensitive awareness-raising story, turns into a tired entirely fictional, unhelpful jolly.

A long evening for adults and a confusing one for children.