Class Enemy is a play by the British playwright, novelist and broadcaster, Nigel Williams. He achieved recognition with
his first novel, My Life Closed Twice (1978), a work of comic literary fiction about a failed novelist obsessed with his
university girlfriend. The tendency of his work is generally towards the comic, but his fiction also has a sharp
philosophical edge. Several of his books have been adapted to television. Class enemy is his first play, and it was first
performed at the Theatre Upstairs on 9 March 1978, and at The Royal Court Theatre on 4 April, 1978. The play is set
in a South London school, and focuses on a day in the lives of a set of delinquent teenagers who fail, and are failed by,
their formal education, and whose attempts to teach themselves something of value provide the structure of the play.
It was followed by Sugar and Spice, Line 'Em and Trial Run (1980), My Brother's Keeper (1985), Country Dancing (1987)
and his adaptation of William Golding's Lord of the Flies (1996).
The play is divided into three acts, and it is set in a school class in the South of London. The play starts one day at 14:30
and it is for the author emplaced in the present. The play is about a group of vandal youngsters, six teenager boys so
terrible that nobody is prepared to teach them. They are in a school room waiting for the teacher who never seems to
arrive. The school room is almost destroyed. While waiting, Iron, one of the boys, attempts to make his colleagues to
teach a five-minute lesson to pass the time. Nigel starts, speaking about his drunker father. Sweetheart follows
speaking about sex, until he gets to nonsense and finishes telling a joke. Then, it is the turn of Racks, he doubts about
what to speak and finally speaks about gardening and winder boxes. The teacher appears in the school room looking
for Cameron, Snatch, and takes him, and announces them that there is no teacher prepared for them. It is the turn of
Nipper, who speaks about blacks and how they are guilty for everything. Then, Snatch returns and he is received as a
hero. He tells them about the best thing he can do, smashing windows. At that point Iron and Sky-light start quarrelling,
and Iron is hit in the face by Sky-light, Iron does not return the hit to Sky-light, who starts his lesson about how prepare
Bread and butter Pudding, an English dish, and tells them that his parents are both blind. Iron laughs at it and provokes
him into a violent confrontation, they fight, and they are interrupted by the arrival of the Master, they insult and throw
him out. Now it is the Iron´s turn, and he speaks about self-defence. Sweetheart returns to class, and the school closes.
In the play there are seven characters, six boys and a teacher. Sweetheart, a student about sixteen, smart and pretty,
he is the most intelligent and reflexive of the boys. Racks “is a thin, spotty youth” that wears a tattered uniform, he is
a bit harder than the others. Nipper he is a punk-rocker, and his uniform “is so distorted as to be almost
unrecognisable”. He is racist and xenophobe, and believes that blacks are guilty of everything that happens, and tries
to convince his classmates about it. Sky-light, “a fattish, blonde lad with glasses and a solemn look about him”, he
opposes to Iron´s ordering in the class, which brings them to quarrel. Iron, “very tall, wearing a leather jacket and with
a constantly aggressive, needling manner”. He does not seem a schoolkid. He will be considered as the leader of the
boys. He acts in an aggressive, violent and impulsive way. He considers himself superior and believes that he can teach
them better than any teacher.
The class is a mirror of the world outside the classroom, a reality full of injustice where people are in conflict with the
system. One of the themes of the play is education, it is a critic to educational system, but not only to that also it is a
critic to society. It tries to reflect the most deprived parts of society and the situation of young people who are totally
excluded, and abandon for society. It shows how those teenagers are totally out of the system, and the impossibility
to create a future for them if institutions abandon them.
The language used in the play is the real language used for teenagers of very low-classes in the South of London.
Williams represent the pronunciation of teenagers, for instance: “ejucation” “sunning”…, and the kind of language
they used, full of swear words as “cunt”, “Fuckin´ jelly”… It conveys realism, we are totally immersed in the world of
those boys through their use of language.
Having outlined some features of Class Enemy, I will provide my opinion about the play. First of all, I want to say that
the language used in the play makes impossible for me to understand it. The author transcribes the pronunciation of
the boys, and it makes the play really difficult for no native speakers. Due to that fact I have not been able to enjoy
the play, I have tried to find a version in Spanish to grasp the meaning of text, but I have not found any, so, I only can
speak about the information that I have found, but not about my own impressions during the reading process. In my
opinion the author recreates perfectly the atmosphere of a classroom in a marginal district of London at that time, the
different types of youngsters: punk-rockers, fatty and wearing glasses, thin and spotty… Williams portrays the world
of those teenagers, the violence, the way they create their own hierarchies, their own rules, how they are totally
abandon for teachers and institutions, the author conveys that they do not have any future apart of being delinquents
if nobody concerns about them. The play is a hard critic about educational system and society. I believe that it is a
really interesting play, and I feel disappointed for not being able to understand the language, I will try to find it in
Spanish and read it.