BWW Reviews: MONKEY BARS, Unicorn Theatre, January 11 2013

"It's like... er... a play, 'cept it's not really. There's actors and all that, but they don't tell a story like they did when I went Aladdin with the school. Well, they do tell a story I s'pose, but it's lots of stories, about kids and it's funny you know, but sometimes it's a bit sad too."

"A man must've gone to an assembly, or something, at a school and then sort of asked the kids to talk into his iPod so he could record what they said and keep it. Then he must've written it all out on a piece of paper and then he must've made all the actors learn what the kids said because they say all the words."

"It's funny, you know, because they kinda sound like kids sometimes, but other times they sound like grown-ups, 'specially when they're drinking wine the way they do on the telly. Some of the men actors are really funny when they talk like boys, because I kind of knew that boys talked like that because of my brother and that, but it's funny when you hear what boys really say when it's just, you know, boys talking."

"And what's really, really good - me and Alysha laughed and laughed - is the bit when the grown-ups talk like girls talking about what jobs they want and they all want to be on X-Factor because, like, we all do and we talk like that - LOL."

"It wasn't boring like the programmes on the telly when they talk about important stuff for kids like potilics and drugs and that, like we don't know nuffink. It was just like us in the playground and round at Alysha's when we do sleepover. And that's like good, because it's true and there's not much that grown-ups do that is true. I think that's because the actors were really good - they must be clever and got lots of exams and that. And that the man with the iPod must've really listened to the kids because most grown-ups don't, do they? They're always busy or looking at their phones and texting and that."

"The funniest thing of all was that it was a bit like watching Harry Potter. You know it's about kids, yeah, but there's loads of grown-ups in the audience like it's a proper play about grown-ups and they're laughing too and they feel a bit sad sometimes and they like really clapped at the end, more than the kids even. I think it's really for grown-ups not kids, though me and Alysha liked it lots."

Monkey Bars is at The Unicorn Theatre until 26 January

Gary Naylor is chief reviewer for westend.broadwayworld.com and feels privileged to see so much of London's theatre. He writes about cricket at nestaquin.wordpress.com and also for The Guardian, Spin Cricket and Channel Five and commentates at testmatchsofa.com. His writing on films and other subjects is at tootingtrumpet.wordpress.com. Comments are always welcome.

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