'Unmissable' – Our five star review of The Boy at the Back of the Class at Wolverhampton Grand

Onjali Q Rauf MBE is not only an award-winning children’s author, but also a human rights activist who helps refugees to survive the crossing of northern France to their final destinations.

She also campaigns to end domestic violence and other heinous crimes and organises aid to those in need.

Pretty impressive; I have no idea what I have been doing with my life!

This week, young theatregoers and their parents are particularly encouraged to go to see the stage adaptation of her thought-provoking, informative novel and judging by the diversity of the audience, although the play is currently on the Key Stage Two curriculum for schools, it is attracting more and more audience members of all ages, simply because it is so incredibly entertaining.

We live in a multi-cultural environment with new and different people from a variety of countries joining us almost every day, but how do these people feel in a strange country, with different traditions, practices, and way of life? How easy is it to integrate and begin to make friends and take part?

The Boy At The Back Of The Class just might go some way to answering those questions. This is the story of Ahmet, a refugee child who starts a new school and is is sat, as the title suggests, in an empty seat at the back of the class.

The narrator of the story, Alexa and her pals befriend Ahmet and through their developing friendship, his background, his escape from his homeland and the difficulties of integrating into a new country and a new school are revealed.

Ahmet lost his parents, his sister and even his cat while fleeing from war-torn Syria and is all alone. But are any of his family members still alive? He has no idea. Neither does he speak English. Just imagine being that alone in the world.

Onjali has managed to humanise refugees through the play, and although in this case it is an innocent child, unlikely to cause any real problems, the events taking place on stage do make you far more aware of what it might be like to be part of their world instead of ours.

One of my pet hates is adults acting as children. My past experience of this medium of theatre has been that their performances often come across as irritating and silly, but in this case, the young adult cast are superb.

Their characters are nine years old, turning ten, so incredibly young, yet completely believable. They transport you back to the school playground; encounters with bullies, the need to ask questions of adults which you are afraid to ask, and the close relationship with your friends which at that age is everything.

Farshid Rokey as Ahmet was mostly silence for the first act and yet perfectly portrayed his role through physical drama and his frustration and sadness were palpable.

Sasha Desouza Willock played the narrator, Alexa, with determination and complete commitment to her cause and really is the glue which holds the play together. I have never seen a young adult actress portray a child with such flair.

Abdul-Malik Janneh was loveable and simply funny as clumsy Michael, while Gordon Millar as Tom had all the inhibitions and recklessness of a nine-year-old little boy.

Jo McNamara as Brendan the Bully was suitably menacing and clearly ignorant of anything outside of his parents’ blinkered views, and the fight scene between Brendan and Ahmet was well executed and extremely authentic.

Monique Touko’s direction is super slick and clearly, she has well researched the core elements of the storyline.

Set and costume designer Lily Arnold has created remarkably simple but effective scenery which serves well as a playground, a home, the interior of a school and even the gates of Buckingham Palace!

Nick Ahad, together with Onjali, has adapted the novel for the stage in a way which is so engaging and attention grabbing for youngsters, but also entertaining for adults too.

Although obviously aimed at a younger audience, The Boy At The Back Of The Class will certainly touch a nerve with everyone, and hopefully help us to see that people like Ahmet are here by necessity and not always by choice.

While we may have our own ideas about living in a multi-cultural environment, hopefully we can see that the circumstances some people find themselves in are often unavoidable.

I certainly came away with a slightly different opinion of the plight of refugees and if that is the case, then the author has succeeded admirably in her quest. Unmissable!

For tickets, visit grandtheatre.co.uk or call 01902 429212. Runs until Saturday.