The rise of the teenager may have seen its start in the 1950s, but those teens with angry young men for their fathers developed into angsty young men a decade later. And they, in turn, left their mark, already bearing echoes of Salinger’s earlier Holden Caulfield from the ’50s, upon their own offspring in the 1960s.

Barry Hines explored the angst of teenage years coupled with poverty, misunderstanding and the feeling of being helplessly undervalued in his 1969 novel A Kestrel for a Knave.

This was soon adapted into a film, Kes, with a script by Hines, Ken Loach and Tony Garnett. Later, Lawrence Till and Allan Stronach both adapted play scripts for Kes. Masquerade have just staged their own moving production with an excellent adaptation by Ian Moore based on previous scripts.

Billy, played by Alex Weenink.

Blue Box’s versatile acting space had a compact, cleverly designed stage set by Chris Muscat and costumes in the hands of Nicole Cuschieri. These served as an appropriate backdrop for the poignant human interactions and subsequent tragedy that befalls young Billy Casper.

Alex Weenink plays working-class Billy, the misunderstood 15-year-old protagonist, who lives with his bullying older brother Jud and his mother on a council estate in a South Yorkshire community.

He seems to be destined for a dead-end life working in the coal pit as he approaches the end of his school years, with little interest in school and teachers who have long given up on him.

Yet he finds solace, joy and purpose in learning to train a fledgling kestrel who becomes his most faithful companion. Weenink gives an honest and heartfelt portrayal of Billy, mana­ging to explore his ambivalent relationship with his mother and the hard and often cruel one with his brother Jud, whose arrogance and rage are expressed by contempt laced with violence towards young Billy.

This production of Kes is another triumph for Masquerade

Kieran Kelly was perfectly cast as the bullying Jud and doubled in another domineering role as headteacher, Mr Gryce, exposing in both cases the vindictive violent streak in many disillusioned young men at the time: a slow bubbling rage that comes from being undervalued – and often masked by false confidence and bravado. Kelly’s range was also clear from the third character he played – Mr Giles, the local farmer who lets Billy first explore the kestrel’s nest on his land.

Stephen Oliver, who played a variety of supporting characters.

Along with Weenink, Kelly was also responsible for the puppeteering of the kestrel, Kes, itself, which was crucial to seve­ral core scenes, particularly the ones later in the play, where Billy flies his kestrel for Miss Farthing, his English teacher, played by Jayne Giordanella, who doubled as Billy’s mother, among other characters.

The doubling that three cast members enacted was incredibly seamless and pleasing to see from a technical perspective because it showcased the actors’ versatility. Stephen Oliver played a variety of supporting characters, from Mr Porter, Billy’s newsagent employer, and Mrs Tibbut, his friend’s irate mother, to Mr Sugden, maths and PE teacher at Billy’s school, giving a properly good send-up of the reluctant teacher trope.

Oliver was as well cast as Kelly and Giordanella, and it is clear that director Ian Moore’s executive choices made for a strong, sharp dynamic bet­ween the supporting characters and Weenink, making the whole a very enjoyable, cohesive performance.

School bully MacDowall, played by Melissa Mercieca (left) with English teacher Miss Farthing, played by Jayne Giordanella.

School bully MacDowall (Melissa Mercieca), along with Billy’s friends, Allender (Michelle Chetcuti) and Tibbut (Ben Tonna) and young Mitchell (Lucia Mifsud) completed the cast of students with whom Billy’s school interactions shifted from tolerance and camaraderie, to playground antipathies and arguments.

I was impressed by the discipline and the well-executed parts that these new young actors gave life to – it is clear that Masquerade’s new young blood has not been idle during the pandemic hiatus and are clearly well prepared to be back on stage.

This production of Kes is another triumph for Masquerade, the only pity being that an imbalance in COVID restrictions did not allow as many audience members to enjoy the show as it most certainly deserved.