What the audience is confronted with on stage is not idyllic in the least, and right from the start we get the feeling that not everything will turn out satisfactory in this setting. Especially not for 8-year-old Bengt, who is subject to constant bullying in a small town seeping with pseudo-morality somewhere in Germany.

This is where Fabian Sattler’s adaptation of the novel is set – a place where bullying, discrimination and callousness become palpable on stage with a good dose of dark humour.

It is through the stellar performance of the actors, who are able to slip into new roles blazingly fast, switching from cruel kids to superficial parents from one moment to the next, that children in the audience are quickly able to comprehend how excluded Bengt must feel. Help arrives in the form of an anthropomorphised dog named Jagger, whose well-meant yet not exactly irreproachable advice promises a quick remedy.

We soon find ourselves confronting some exciting questions: who is the victim here? Who is the perpetrator? Is it ok to have different friends? Is taking revenge the right way to handle things?

“Jagger, Jagger” is an encouraging play for young people that highlights many questions without offering all the answers.