James Haddrell previews Protest at Brixton House

As I wrote last week in my preview of the Greenwich Children’s Theatre Festival, I am always concerned when programming to find high quality work for older children and young people. There is plenty of work for the very young, but all too often producers shy away from the apparently harder task of finding teenage audiences for theatre.

One exciting new show that bucks that trend is acclaimed playwright Hannah Lavery’s Protest, which will be coming to south London next week after highly successful runs in Newcastle and Edinburgh last year.

Heading to Brixton House for a limited eight performances, Protest follows three girls – Alice, Jade and Chloe. Running is Alice’s happy place – you might even say it’s in her DNA. She’s the best runner at her school but is struggling to prove her worth. Jade is slowly coming to realise that prejudices can be found everywhere, even in the most surprising places. Realising that her education is ill-equipped to encompass her own history and heritage, and taunted by bullies at school, she knows it is time to tell her own story. Meanwhile, with litter piling up in the local forest, and all over the world, Chloe is determined to make a change and tackle the looming environmental crisis. The three girls prepare to stand up for what they believe in despite the injustices stacked against them.

The play was acclaimed by The Guardian during its initial run which described the show as “a stirring drama of waking up to injustice and trying to right it”, while industry paper The Stage called it “sharply written and packed with youthful promise”.

The strong cast features Kirsty MacLaren (The Crown, The Boys in the Boat) as Alice, Harmony Rose-Bremner (Fifteen-Love, Hamnet) as Jade and Amy Murphy (Holby City, Blood Brothers) as Chloe.

Performances run from 13-16 February 2024, with tickets available from https://brixtonhouse.co.uk/shows/protest/

Rehearsal photography by Mihaela Bodlovic