Edinburgh Fringe 2024
The Academy Trust: Under New Management!
Mode Theatre
Genre: character comedy, Satire
Venue: theSpace @ Surgeons' Hall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
The fast moving scenes are very effective. The actors really give you a lighthearted picture of teachers and some of the issues. It is very well directed and topical, well written and well performed by all three actors.
Review
In front of us is a set of three attractive panels showing typical classroom scenes. There’s also a table 2 chairs and a vacuum cleaner.
A teacher sits at the table writing an email to resign when a characterful gossipy cleaner arrives and she seems to know everyone very well. It seems that the teacher doesn’t have transferable skills so what else can a teacher do?
Dean Osgood, Molly Sedgewick and Frances Knight from Mode Theatre Company create, perform, direct and produce this show now running at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Teachers and education are interesting topics to explore theatrically and by Mode Theatre’s performers who are also teachers, they are up to date on the issues!
Suddenly there’s a flashback! The agenda of a meeting has been switched and they’re now looking at school values versus icebreakers, and someone brings a sign with funny acronyms! This is a comedic lighthearted look at what is happening in schools by three performers who are also teachers!
While the fed up teacher is still trying to figure out what she might do if she were to leave her school career the school district CEO RICK is supposed to arrive to make big announcements. What could they be? For those of us who have taught in different school systems we all understand what is coming – budget cuts. This topic seems to loom heavy if not every year then every other year in many schools, sadly.
Mode Theatre wants to share some of these issues by comedy and satire in an entertaining show. Anyone who ever went to school or worked in a school the topics seem to repeat themselves every decade sometimes the titles change and our new soft approach so comedy is a great way to deal with them!
Team building day this year is to actually build a new classroom!!! Of course this is ironic and ultimately sad with a heavy amount of sarcasm and satire.
Another topic that comes up and teachers discussions, and certainly in this play is the importance of the photocopier and the rules around using them brought out a funny scene. In between transitions, brief, playful, zippy music moves the timeline very effectively. The three talented actors come out playing different characters with small costume changes, adjustments to their physicality, and voices. They are able to switch characters incredibly quickly and sometimes it is hard to follow them all, which is a place to finesse during the run, but they are types we have probably met in our school lives.
The fast moving scenes are very effective. The actors really give you a lighthearted picture of teachers and some of the issues. It is very well directed and topical, well written and well performed by all three actors.
In one scene of interviews for support staff is hilarious. In another a parent teach parent teacher meeting really shows how simple benign comment from a teacher is might be escalated these days with the threats of complain complaints – can this really be true or is this the reality?
A highlight is a scene at the school gate very well done with recorded sounds of a hubbub of voices in the background of children and parents. The lone teacher is friedly and patient as she tries to fend off problems and comments of every topic imaginable, we’ve heard these questions before and they just keep coming back except in a very humorous way in this scene.
Oh, some new initiatives are happening! But there will always be budget cuts. What’s going to happen? What will be cut who will be cut? How will they choose who to cut? There are several witty quips with funny, innovative solutions, and a fascinating art teacher in a blackberry has an interesting take on what’s happening!
Are these ideas and situations far fetched, happening now or in the future? Go and see this light comedic original play with three very good performers playing everyone in this snappy and on topic show!
