Don’t You Forget About Me ★★★

John Hughes’s The Breakfast Club, invited us to spend time in school detention with a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. But what if there was someone else sitting there that Saturday morning in 1985? That is the neat conceit behind Fringe regulars Fake Escape’s Don’t You Forget About Me, in which David Shopland becomes that sixth student and, 40 years later, invites us to the reunion. It’s an amusing alternative view of a familiar story, even if its observations are not always quite as perceptive as its premise promises.

Shopland affectionately reconstructs the film through the eyes of his forgotten outsider, revisiting its characters, conflicts and most famous moments while placing himself at their edges. Along the way, there are plenty of knowing nods to Hughes’ other work and the wider VHS canon, raising wry smiles of recognition. Shopland is a likeable, energetic presence, too, keeping this one-man piece moving at a brisk clip and throwing himself enthusiastically into its physicality. As the cultural references begin to tumble over one another, the show expands into something more personal: a meditation on nostalgia and the peculiar way that films, television and music become tangled up with our memories of who we once were.

The difficulty is that the central conceit begins to run out of steam, even across a relatively lean 45 minutes. There is also the question of how much this has to offer anyone who hasn’t watched The Breakfast Club. Entirely understandably, the script trades in a fair amount of exposition to keep newcomers on board, but that inclusivity comes at a cost. Those familiar the movie are sometimes often told things they already know, while the rest may wonder why they should be quite so invested. The result can feel caught between homage and explanation, hamstringing the momentum at moments it could be building upon its clever premise.

Still, there is genuine warmth in Shopland’s love letter to the movie and the memories that shape us, and its final widening of focus gives the piece an emotional resonance beyond simply riffing on a 1980s favourite. It’s to the show’s credit, but possible eventual detriment, that it makes you want to dig out the movie itself and spend another Saturday in detention with the real thing.