Review: EVERY DAY I MAKE GREATNESS HAPPEN, Hampstead Theatre

Hampstead Theatre's Downstairs space has been transformed into a small classroom to host Richard Molloy's sixth form-based play Every Day I Make Greatness Happen.

Four teens have failed their GCSE English. They're being made to resit to keep their places at the school, and we're privy to their progress during the autumn term.

World-weary teacher Miss Murphy (Susan Stanley) runs the English department, has a child of her own to raise and is battling with the potential minefield of whether to date a fellow member of staff, John (Jon Foster). On top of all this, she has the unenviable task of steering the year twelves through rewriting their coursework and resitting their exams.

One, Kareem (Moe Bar-El), is your typical wide boy charmer. You suspect he could've passed if he'd just put in the work. Another, Iman (Josh Zaré), is geeky, awkward and seems willing to make the effort, but can't quite make the grade, possibly due to events that have seen his confidence drained away.

The third, Alisha (Sofia Barclay) is feisty, clearly intelligent and well capable of a good grade, but has a legitimate reason to have had her focus pulled away from exams. Number four, Mohammed, simply never turns up.

Molloy's dialogue feels totally authentic, no doubt drawing on his other career as a teacher at a north-west London school. I've been out of the education system for longer than I care to remember, but he's successfully ensured that both teachers and students can fully relate to this piece: two people behind me were reacting with the knowing laughs of teachers recognising the vagaries of the school curriculum, whilst a group of teens in front were reacting (possibly over-) enthusiastically to the some of the more intense moments unfolding on stage.

There's drama but also a lot of humour, delivered exceptionally well by Bar-El in particular, who draws genuine laughter at every possible opportunity. Zaré, in his professional debut, has excellent deadpan delivery and portrays an utterly convincing downtrodden spirit - so much so that I was genuinely surprised by his broad smile at the curtain call.

Barclay brings bags of zip and sass to Alisha, including during a piece of oral coursework where she makes an indignantly convincing case that perhaps it's the system, not her, that's the failure here.

Aside from its exceptional young cast members giving real depth to their characters, one of the keys to the success of Every Day I Make Greatness Happen is that it holds a mirror up to the education system without becoming too bitter or judgmental.

Yes, it highlights some shortcomings, but it also brings to light the human nature of teachers and kids alike. No one is perfect, everyone and everything has flaws, and we all find our own ways of dealing with what life throws at us - for better or worse.

Every Day I Make Greatness Happen at the Hampstead Theatre until 20 October

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