Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Joe McGhee, Kate Bricknal, Amy Dalton, Thomas Dalton, Anthony Devine, John Dixon, Harvey Fitzpatrick, Olivia Grace, Christopher Hird, Kayleigh Anne Meredith, Josh O’Grady, Georgia Rooney, Joseph head, Marni Stanley, Samantha Westwell, Georgia Wills.

A masterpiece is only considered to be so by many when it has been born of hard work, of intensity, absolute emotion and perhaps even suffering on the part of the artist who dares challenge the convention and thinking of the time; whose blood has been metaphorically spilt, whose look to the audience gathered is one of beautiful defiance but also which can be seen a sense of pure exotic exhaustion after the struggle. The eyes, the heart, the soul cry out for tenderness and empathy, of understanding what it was like to carry such a fruitful burden and one that inhabits the meaning of The Seven Acts of Mercy, that ask for the same generosity shown Caravaggio’s masterpiece.

It is to the young, the next generation that we must show such admiration and urge them onwards, never more so than in these times when the world is skewed against them, that their own life’s masterpiece is yet to be written, but which does not stop them from achieving the first put down lines, the artistic sketch and the feel for what they will hopefully rise to become.

For only the second time, Anders Lustgarten’s The Seven Acts of Mercy has been performed by an endeavour of actors, and when you are following in the rather enormous steps of The R.S.C., that tidal wave of emotions is enough to sweep you off your feet and perhaps make the room sway with more passion than might be readily felt otherwise; an emotion incredibly handled by the third-year students of Liverpool Media Academy and directed with a sense of the sublime by Scott Williams.

Compassion, empathy, two distinct traits of humanity which are in very short supply, we are wrapped up too far in our own problems to look beyond our narrow sense of self to really see the beauty in such acts of kindness, of acts of mercy that not only feed the spirits of those put under pressure, but our own self-worth. To witness in the performance space of the Blue Coat such a production, of the keen talent coming through is a raising of the spirits and in each one of this young cast, a determination to bring out the very best in each other and themselves is a reminder of what we should all be doing, that our time here is not in the pursuit of the material, but in making the struggle of all a little easier to bare.

A marvellous production of Anders Lustgarten’s The Seven Acts of Mercy, one that is powerful, poignant, and passionate. The Liverpool Media Academy have once again shown just how productive and fruitful their work is.

Ian D. Hall