'They make you remember so much things. And it’s just like a waste of brain space. Yeah, like my brain’s only thirty-two GB.’

I recently watched ‘Our Generation,’ a fine play articulating the perspectives of contemporary teenagers. (The National Theatre, London, until 9 April, and then the Chichester Festival Theatre, 22 April to 14 May.)

‘If I-I don’t get my top grades I’m just gonna go into policing. I feel like I’m good at investigating like when something goes on at home. I’m very good at solving the crime.’

Over a five-year period Alecky Blythe and her team of ‘collectors’ interviewed twelve young people in London, Birmingham, Northamptonshire, Anglesey, Glasgow and Belfast. She then edited these testimonies into a tapestry of the concerns, obsessions, fears and fantasies of a generation. The teenagers are played by talented actors who retain the hesitations, repetitions and deviations of the source material.

‘I switched, um, friends groups. Er, I’m hanging more round with Sienna, cos like, Sienna’s a quiet girl and she hangs around with, like, people like Amy and Charity and they’re, like, quiet people. And then, yeah cos of that, I think that if I continue hanging around with her then I will get myself into less trouble.’

The young people come across as at once charming and frustrating. They oscillate wildly from one subject to another. Sometimes they are uncannily wise and sometimes extraordinarily foolish. They worry about exams and fitting in and relationships. They dream of wealth, celebrity, America and Primark. 

'Celebrities are a big part of my life because I’ve always wanted to become one.’

‘I’ve gotta be at a hundred per cent health so I can watch Love Island.’

‘I’m not falling in love because one, I’m not allowed; two, I can’t be bothered with it; three, it never works out.’

Their worldview is naturally narrow and self-centred. And they have a tendency to catastrophize.

‘Be obsessed with yourself because you never meet anyone like yourself.’

‘I’ve stopped going out, I’ve got no friends, I’ve got no life.’

Occasionally they reveal heart-rending vulnerability. 

‘So, mm, as I got older I started realising that, you know, um, I’m not really, like, I don’t know I just feel like… I’m not pretty.’

To some extent these concerns are timeless. I recognise many of them from my own distant youth - with a pang of melancholy. But then there are also themes that are particular to the modern world.

‘I love my phone. So much. It’s my life. I’m not even lying. It’s got my whole life in it.’

‘I just need to take a picture, like, yeah? That’s my mentality, take a picture. Instagram’s gotta have a picture.’

‘I got nine’een likes on that, eighty-two on that, hundred and twenty on that, a hundred and three on that, a hundred and twenty-two on that.’

‘Maybe it’s FOMO culture; we’re constantly seeing what everyone else is doing so we wanna be involved, so we never get a break.’

‘Our Generation’ is an excellent example of what’s termed verbatim theatre. It documents the spoken words of real people, and as such it has a very particular, authentic resonance.

I have always been struck by the way verbatim text sounds so different to what we are accustomed to hearing on stage and screen. Here we are confronted with the pauses, stutters, malapropisms and grammatical errors of everyday speech. It’s raw, genuine, true.

‘I’m not accepting this. This isn’t, this isn’t, this isn’t my result. I can do much more better than this… I don’t want to be in this class any more. I made the choice. I don’t wanna be in this class.’

I began my career as a Qualitative Market Researcher. I’d go up and down the country talking to consumers about beer and boilers and baked beans. When we presented our findings, I tried to impress my Clients with my insight, analysis and eloquence. One day I realised that the Clients were not that interested in my intellect. They were, however, fascinated by the occasional direct quotes that I inserted into the debrief. Suddenly they looked up and leaned in. These verbatim statements put the consumer in the room - unfiltered, unmediated, unvarnished. When subsequently we were able to video respondents, the effect was enhanced still further.

‘I don’t like to think about my future, like ever. I literally haven’t thought about what I’m gonna eat for dinner.’

I had to come to terms with the fact that real people articulating their opinions in their own voice are more compelling than my interpretation of what real people say. Perhaps we should all endeavour, not just to report what consumers are doing and thinking – but to bring their perspectives into the room with us.

‘That wasn’t me, that was someone else.’

I left ‘Our Generation’ with a greater understanding of, and sympathy for, a much younger generation. It’s tough out there. I also emerged with a commitment to introduce a little youthful levity into the too earnest world of Middle-to-Old Age.

‘I don’t want to be like serious adult then have serious children and have serious future in a serious house and serious everything.’

‘It's a rap race, with a fast pace.
Concrete words, abstract words,
Crazy words and lying words.
Hazy words and dying words,
Words of faith, tell me straight.
Rare words and swear words,
Good words and bad words.
What are words worth?
What are words worth? Words.’

Tom Tom Club, ‘Wordy Rappinghood’ (C Frantz Christopher / S Stanley) 

No. 364