KING JAMES at Hampstead Theatre

★★★★

“a pitch perfect dissection of male friendship, that tender bond painted in violent strokes”

The saying (almost) goes, of all the unimportant things, sport is the most important.

One reason: sport is the lingua franca of male friendship, all those off-the-shelf metaphors and handy comparisons to fill in for intractable thoughts. Those ups, downs, bruises and heartbreaks. Computers talk in code, men channel life through the fluctuating fortunes of the team they follow.

In King James, we track Matt and Shawn on that journey.

First up, we’re in La Cave du Vin in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, and Shawn is here to do a deal for Matt’s precious tickets for the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, the Cavs. This is 2004, the rookie season of local hero LeBron James and, even now, these cagey strangers sense he’s going to be an all-time great.

And he’s theirs.

What the two men don’t know yet is that they’re going to be yoked together serving in the court of King James for the next 12 years (we time-jump to 2010, 2014 and 2016) and their friendship will reflect the comings and goings of the basketball star.

The goings (as LeBron sensationally quits for Miami Heat) are a betrayal and a trauma; the comings (when he returns to end half a century of Cavs failure) are a time of euphoria. Unless you judge a man’s worth not by his impact but by his loyalty.

Loyalty is everything to Matt. He is fragile, hangdog out of choice, riding a mostly luckless life. He has aspirations but they don’t take him far. He’s over reliant on his careless privilege and indulgent parents.

Shawn is sharper round the edges, more purposeful, but that doesn’t mean he is destined to carve out prosperity. Shawn heads to New York and LA to pursue a writing career (mirroring the playwright’s own life). Meanwhile, in between moments of good fortune, Matt tends his parents’ dusty bric-a-brac shop.

Matt is white, and Shawn black, which doesn’t matter much until Matt lets slip what Shawn perceives as a slur.

In this delicate, conventional two-hander, the chemistry is bro-code standard – funny, deluded and nerdy. (LeBron better than Jordan? Discuss.)

The story marks out tiny gradations of disappointment, how life is a study in the futility and necessity of connection. Tension underpins everything – who’s winning, who’s losing. Under Alice Hamilton’s direction, Sam Mitchell (Matt) and Enyi Okoronkwo (Shawn) – both excellent – capture the tone and rhythm of the script with such elan, every exchange feels like a hand-wrapped gift.

Arguing over the origin of the word “fan”:

Matt: No, it’s for “fan” – like electric fan or something.

Shawn: Why would that be the case?

Matt: I dunno! Because we’re cool?

Award-winning playwright Rajiv Joseph is a Cleveland native and this one’s from the heart. His razor-sharp vignettes – slangy and real – are held together with the scar tissue of a veteran sports fan, full of pangs, longing, and the most dreaded thing of all – hope.

King James is a pitch perfect dissection of male friendship, that tender bond painted in violent strokes. Joseph captures these moments in all their delightful and infuriating folly and significance.

You don’t need to know basketball to love King James. You just need to know a man’s essential sorrow.

Treat yourself to a court-side seat.