A group of young people are confronted with a Shakespeare play and completely nonplussed. The language is alienating, they find little to identify with in the characters or their predicaments. Then the play opens up to them, and gradually, without quite realising it, they fall under its spell. In this low-budget documentary by Anthony Fletcher and Rob Curry, the young people in this familiar situation are members of Ovalhouse, a youth drama company in south London, and the play they're rehearsing is The Tempest.

Lines between performance and real life are blurred: the action spills out of the theatre into Kennington park, which doubles as Prospero's island; actors step in and out of character, discussing their off-stage lives and working through on-stage motivations; lines are fluffed, puzzled over and paraphrased.

Parallels with inner-city London life in 2012 are noticed and remarked upon – Caliban's plight is viewed with particular interest by actors who know what disempowerment feels like. The opening sequence, a montage of last year's riots, seems a slightly forced attempt to garner topicality, but for the most part the directors are happy to let the audience connect the dots. The film-making is rough and ready – Tempest looks like a student film and often sounds like a promotional video for Ovalhouse – but the cast is sympathetic and it's a pleasure to see them making the play their own.