Don’t You Forget About Me

Don’t You Forget About Me starts with a neatly exhibited sequence: David Shopland recreates The Breakfast Club, using stools to stand in for its five teenagers. It is a clever way into a show about 80s nostalgia, and the characterisation at the beginning is very good.

But those looking for more than a retelling of the Breakfast Club will not gain much after this point.

The trouble begins when the piece gradually descends into a rant about nostalgia, then into a mad rave, essentially a list of things from Shopland’s 1980s childhood. It gets a little strange, and the simple focus of the opening gives way to something much less controlled.

Still, Shopland as a performer remains engaging, and the first section shows there is a strong show buried in the idea. When the stools are doing the work and the characters are alive, the piece has a pleasing, if shallow, theatrical simplicity.

Don’t You Forget About Me by Fake Escape. Credit Alex Brenner.