Decky Does A Bronco

Acrobats who are actors, or actors who are acrobats, are one of the essential ingredients of Douglas Maxwell's play. The other is the open air. At UCC on Monday, the Grid Iron company was blessed by being able to perform in a glade-like area of what's left of the quad, and by weather that, though blowing sharp and cold, stayed dry.

Maxwell's story is set in the land already defined by Dennis Potter in work such as Blue Remembered Hills; these are inner-city children whose fantasies give their nine-year-old lives a coherence that can accommodate even competition and taunts. Their stunts are the only allowable demonstrations of their dawning - and frightening - masculinity.

Decky is the one who can't quite compete; his fate is the spring of the story, told as a reminiscence by the adult David, played with a unifying calm by Keith MacPherson. Alasdair Lay is Decky, joining Ross Sutherland and Jimmy Harrison in a strong team playing adult and juvenile roles. Ben Harrison's direction enhances the clever construction of the piece, which is given further impetus by Allan Ross's designs and by Philip Pinsky's thumping score.

Decky Does A Bronco is at the Belfast Festival at Queen's, October 29th-31st