If you like your dramas challenging and controversial, “Herons” at the Lyric Hammersmith is the place to go. The Lyric often makes some brave choices of compelling material, but this is in a league of its own.Simon Stephens, a former teacher himself, starts his play with a schoolboy inflating a blow-up sex doll. There are repeated questions on whether children are able to be kids any more. This is the same bleak working-class world as the one where innocents like Jamie Bulger and Damilola Taylor get killed by youths not much older than themselves. There is an unpleasant scene where the put-upon hero Billy is held down and sodomized. The stage is slightly inexplicably covered in water but the humor, where it is, is as dry as a bone.You might say, “abandon hope, ye who enter here.” But there are good things about the show, notably the energetic performances of the mainly young actors and especially Max Gill, who makes an assured stage debut as Billy. This could seem like a nasty school play, but he and Billy Matthews, as lord-of-the-flies arch bully Scott Cooper, do a great job in moving between childlike anger, adult aggression, bewilderment and just a few fleeting moments of tenderness – usually involving their shared heartthrob.This is a revival of the play, 15 years after its first production at the Royal Court, and in the interim it has acquired a coincidental twist. The story is set around the River Lea, recently the subject of an autobiographical song by Adele – and the boys’ wise-beyond-her-years girlfriend is called Adele, also nicely played by Sophia Decaro.The plot is promising at first. Some months before the story opens, a gang of youths attacked and killed a 13-year-old girl. The incident was seen by Billy’s dad, who called the police and Scott’s older brother is jailed. Scott wants revenge. All of this is cleverly sketched in.So far, so good (or bad). Then it all gets a little wobbly with various flourishes which are just a little confusing. Of course Billy’s useless dad just so happens to have a gun – a plot twist which usually means the said weapon will play some part in events, or why introduce it?The herons are given some weighty significance. There’s no rule that all symbols have to be fully explained, and it’s often good they aren’t because mystery can be intriguing, but they end up as just another baffling false trail rather than an insightful touch.Billy communicates in perfect sign language with his alcoholic mum. Director Sean Holmes has the actors splashing around in water like the aftermath of the Yorkshire floods, with huge lock gate behind them which at the moment of the greatest tension start to cascade water and seems likely to burst open, flooding the stalls. Maybe these are a symbol of a flood of emotion or redemption.Hints of menacing music are used to artificially build tension and behind the set is a cinema-size plasma screen showing a silent wildlife film about monkeys. These simians seem to have been selected to suggest something about the characters. “Your dad is monkey” is one line. But, like the unseen herons, they are somewhat distracting.Stephens is an outstanding playwright. Anyone wanting to get a good idea of his “in yer face” backstory could do worse than to start here. Just don’t expect another Olivier-winning work on a par with “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.”Rating: ***.“Herons” by Simon Stephens continues at the Lyric Theatre, King Street, Lyric Square, Hammersmith, London W6 0Q through February 13.
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