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The Inbetweeners for a post-Adolescence era, Boys We Knew tells the story of a tight-knit
childhood friendship group going stale amidst poor economic opportunities and toxic online
culture.

We meet characters Jasper, CJ and Liam having a typical hang out at their B-tech music
college, their exchanges drifting between affectionate teasing, bullying and the outright
problematic.

Boys We Knew at Salford Arts Theatre

As the play unfolds, we see the dynamics between the trio play out as CJ tries to get sober,
Liam aims to take a moral stand, and Jasper falls further into the online manosphere. Across a haze of weekend parties and weekday jam sessions, the three boyhood friends are torn apart by their different paths as they navigate their journey into becoming men.

All three male actors are superbly convincing as troubled teens who are by turns tragic and
comical. Oliver Davenport as CJ brings wide-eyed and youthful optimism, and James Grundy plays the conflicted Liam wanting to make a change but unsure how.

Gabriel Keogh as Jasper

Meanwhile, Gabriel Keogh as Jasper shows a dark-sided energy of someone going from on the brink to beyond the pale of acceptable behaviour even amongst the morally ambiguous world of teenage boys.

But it is Shauna Jackman as the down-to-earth Anjelica who shines as a voice of reason,
bringing some much-needed perspective to the boys and offering some clarifying relief for
the audience.

Together the young actors do well to portray the frustrations of feeling stuck in a
post-industrial city, the ways that poor behaviour can be masked by the mundanity of
everyday life and the bitterness of friendships that turn sour.

If anything, the physicality of some of the acting is too convincing at times, with the poor eye contact, awkward gestures and bad posture of the characters leaving me thinking at one point I was watching a school play.

However, it has to be said the onstage portrayal of stoned rambling is the most accurate I’ve ever seen.

Emilia Chinnery’s debut as playwright

Boys We Knew is a debut by Emilia Chinnery, a young writer who drew on her own
experiences to create the believable characters we see on stage. Chinnery’s writing is
exceptionally plausible, creating an on-stage realism that is impossible to deny. The dialogue feels natural and there are skillfully deployed monologues that come together to deliver insightful political and social commentary without being hacky – an incredibly difficult feat.

The plot did take a slightly farcical turn two-thirds of the way through, but this doesn’t
undermine the overall quality of the script, which in conjunction with the strong performances creates an enjoyable and thought-provoking watch, not to mention some genuinely hilarious moments.

“A quality script, full of hilarity and strong performances”

The truth is if they wrote The Inbetweeners today, it would be about incels. Boys We Knew
goes some way to updating the narrative on laddish banter for the online age and showing
how toxic online discourse, a wasteland of contemporary economic opportunity and teenage
angst can converge in terrible ways.

I did find the ending slightly dissatisfying and felt at times Jasper strayed into being a
caricature, until I realised that he isn’t a caricature at all and the ending is accurate. We can
spend our whole lives trapped in toxic friendships that can never end if we’re scared to take
the plunge.

For some people (and some men in particular), the ease of this act, and the
temptation not to call out one’s friends in favour of a quiet life, can be catastrophic.

Boys We Knew was on for one night only as part of Manchester Fringe Festival. Find out more about the play by clicking here

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