Child abuse

Christmas approaches. And kitchens and playrooms across the land resound with the joyous tinkle of little Josephs and Marys rehearsing their roles in the Nativity play. My four-year-old son, making his debut in a farmyard cameo, has just one line, ‘I’m a donkey and I’m very tired,’ which he repeats endlessly to the delight of his beaming dad.

So I can only imagine the levels of pride surging through the families of Ciara Southwood and Madison Lygo as they prepared for the lead roles of Mimi and Janey in the Royal Court’s new play Kin, which is set in a girls’ prep school. The homes of these lucky ten-year-old actresses will have echoed with the play’s exquisitely turned dialogue. ‘Lazy shit,’ says Janey. ‘Did you see how she just fucking looked at me?’ says Mimi. ‘She’s a psycho.’ Janey: ‘Mr B’s a fat fuck.’ Mimi: ‘Fucking tell me, fuckshit.’ Janey: ‘You’re going to have to fuck everyone in your class.’ Mimi: ‘I fucking hate you, you dickwad, you fucking dick. You’re such a diiiiiick!’ And so on.

How their star-struck parents must have glowed with pleasure. How the visiting aunties must have sighed with joy at their nieces’ brilliance. How the neighbours, invited to overhear rehearsals on ingenious pretexts, must have thrilled at the authenticity of performances underpinned by lived experience. Mimi: ‘Go and knock on Mr Edwards’s door and tell him you want him to rape you.’

New writer E.V. Crowe presents us with a boarding school full of confused little wrecks who swagger and swear and bully to mask their emotional isolation and sense of abandonment. That’s perfectly believable. But it stretches credulity that these ten-year-old treasures have a familiarity with the weapons of sexual humiliation that wouldn’t disgrace the nonce-wing at Parkhurst.