The Children's Inquiry | Review

Campaigning verbatim theatre company LUNG have previously created shows exploring the prison system, the housing crisis and child carers. In developing The Children’s Inquiry, Helen Monks and Matt Woodhead (who directs) carried out extensive interviews with four children in the foster system over five years and have interspersed their words with material from the historical records. The result is a remarkable verbatim musical in which the words would be more than sufficiently powerful on their own, but Owen Crouch and Clementine Douglas’s music intensifies them further, like a call to arms.

The show takes the form of a whistlestop tour of over a century of children being failed by the system, from the Victorian workhouses where orphans were trained to be economically productive automatons and the execution of notorious ‘baby farmer’ Amelia Dyer in 1895, through to World War II, Cold War anxiety, austerity, Covid and the present day with a new Labour government promising change. New acts passed by politicians promising to reform the system are marked with the reassuring chimes of Big Ben and self-congratulatory rounds of applause. There’s a lot of ground to cover and the young cast of ten never miss a beat.

Crouch and Douglas’s Musical Theatre pop sound is wittily interspersed with hip hop, jazz and rock influences. A pastiche of a sunny 1950s pop number tells the story of the British children who were sent to Australia as part of an appallingly cynical deal between the two countries, where they were promised oranges and sunshine but were used as unpaid farm labourers and subjected to sexual abuse, and a disco number explores the stigma of being gay in the 1980s.  

The sound design isn’t ideal; the structure is on the baggy side (perhaps echoing the minefield of convoluted bureaucracy that all the children have to fight against) and the storytelling can be confusing when multiple timelines overlap, but the ensemble’s energy levels and precision never waver for a moment. Alexzandra Sarmiento’s choreography is a continual whirl of restless energy and body-popping.

There are many distinctive individual performance styles and vocals in the ‘Lions’ cast (alternating with the ‘Tigers’) and all are expertly synchronised throughout, coming together with complex and stirring harmonies. The two oldest girls, Eva Phillips and Antonia Tom-Dollar, both contribute gorgeously soulful vocal performances and Mia Raggio, the youngest, is a mime prodigy who leads the number charting the death of Baby P with the ferocity and authority of a far more seasoned performer.  

‘I am not your success story’, the children retort to adults who try to take credit for them. This show however, is certainly a triumph. Driven by empathy, it’s a hugely distinctive new work that pushes the boundaries of what Musical Theatre can achieve.  

PRODUCTION CREDITS

​The Children’s Inquiry by Owen Crouch and Clementine Douglas (music), Helen Monks and Matt Woodhead (with Angelica, Amber, Frank and Jelicia) (book and lyrics)

Southwark Playhouse Elephant, 22 July 2024

Starring Archie Smith, Hari Aggarwal, Dara Ajagbe, Logan Clark, Eva Phillips, Mia Raggio, Noah Walton, Josh Cain, Antonia Tom-Dollar, Jude Farrant, Jersey Blu Georgia, Kenya Grace, Fayth Ifil, Vincio Korch, Fearn I’Anson, Lineo Nomonde, Chizaram Ochuba-Okafor, Anna De Oliveira, Kai Parillon and Grace Thomas

Directed by Matt Woodhead

The Children’s Inquiry is playing until 3 August 2024 – for more information and tickets, visit southwarkplayhouse.co.uk.