RADIANT BOY

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★½

“There are some neat, if underplayed, genre twists.”

In its own publicity, Radiant Boy was described by one cast member as “a queer coming-of-age meets The Exorcist via A Taste of Honey”.

That’s a tall order, cramming in a range of genres into a tight turn-around play. It also foresees the fault lines.

It’s 1983. After an unexplained episode at a music academy in London, trainee vocalist Russell (Stuart Thompson) abruptly leaves and returns to his childhood home in a post-industrial town in the North East. Awaiting him is Maud (Wendy Nottingham), his judgmental, curtain-twitching, pass-ag mother.

“It’s happening again,” he announces on his return.

Temperatures drop, bulbs crackle and fail, and he speaks with knowledge of events he’s never witnessed. There is even the suggestion of stigmata.

Maud turns to a priest named Father Miller (Ben Allen), who practises a fringe spiritual therapy he calls psychodivinity.

The substance of the play, therefore, is a series of probing sessions, rituals and cleansings, during which some of the truth behind Russell’s breakdown begins to emerge, including an intense bond he shared with another student, Steph (Renée Lamb), who prowls outside.

Here’s the problem.

There is no menace or atmosphere. Consequently, the cast suffers from a lack of conviction in the material.

The spirit (whose occupation of Russell is never fully explained) is that of Steph, the live-wire, fast-gabbing dancing queen. She is an absolute blast. So what Russell brings home is a friend from school, and the demonic possession is a playdate.

The priest is less an exorcist warring against the forces of evil than a plumber clearing a stubborn blockage in the downpipe.

The acting is technically great – Stuart Thompson as Russell is solid as a moody young man with mummy issues; Nottingham is suitably waspish and disappointed – but the production, under Júlia Levai’s underpowered direction, runs at a perpetual simmer when what is required is some welly, some oomph, some sense of true abyss-staring jeopardy.

Other minor horrors are suggested but never explored or resolved: Father Miller may have malign intentions or Russell’s homosexuality might be a factor. (Much is made of Russell’s queer identity in the programme notes, less so in the actual play.) The folkloric ghost of a young boy in the neighbourhood is raised then dumped. Religion and the nature of evil is surprisingly absent as key talking points.

The staging doesn’t help. The front room that is the centre of the action is initially shrouded in net curtains which are thankfully removed. However, the stanchions remain, and the audience feels fenced off from the actors. As a result, the lingering artificial cube of a set manages to be both too big and too insular at the same time.

There is, at the heart of the story, an intriguing idea. There are some neat, if underplayed, genre twists. Nancy Netherwood is a writer with huge potential, and she produces a script that is crisp, elegant and technically adept. But the play is ambivalent about its subject matter, too prissy to roll up its sleeves and state its case.

In short, the production is haunted by the ghost of the spectacle it might have been.

RADIANT BOY

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 23rd May 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Olivia Spencer

Last ten shows reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

RADIANT BOY

SMOKE at Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★

“The physical reality of the production doesn’t match the stinging quality of the words.”

The publicity copy, and writer Kim Davies’ programme notes, make much of “Smoke” being an adaptation of August Strindberg’s ‘Miss Julie’. There are similarities. The characters’ names – and, more tenuously, their background. Julie (Meaghan Martin) is the daughter of a successful artist, never seen but the constant references to him serve as a reminder of his power. And there’s John (Oli Higginson); a dogsbody at the artist’s beck and call with an obsequious ambition to achieve the latter’s recognition. We are in a kitchen too, albeit a symbolic one.

Yet “Smoke” impresses as a stand-alone piece in its own right. The shackles that bind it to Strindberg’s original both detract and confuse. The setting and the themes of Davies’ writing – writing which is undeniably sharp – are smudged by expectation and the inevitable but thwarted search for comparison.

Sami Fendall’s design suggests the kitchen with an upturned fridge in a pit of black sand. Polina Kalinina and Júlia Levai’s staging makes much use of the sand, stretching its symbolism to breaking point. It is continually being sifted through the hands. It is the eponymous smoke, it is cigarette ash, it is the blunt edge of a knife that will never cut as deep as words. It is foreplay, and afterplay. It becomes limited by its own variations, and therefore a cliché. But back to the kitchen, which is where we find Julie and John. Always in the kitchen at parties, this party being a BDSM party in New York City. John is introducing Julie to the world of bondage, dominance, submission and sadomasochism. It evolves into a game that is not just cutthroat but involves other parts of the anatomy. Verbally graphic, it delves into the subjects of sexual identity, consent and assault.

The performances are as strong as they get. Higginson has a steely charisma that allows him to give his character the credibility it needs, overcoming his status with confidant dominance. Martin’s Julie is no less fierce – her submissiveness snapping intermittently to outrage. Rajiv Pattani’s staccato lighting cleverly shifts the changes of perspective at crucial moments. The play sets out to challenge the notions of consent and, in the wake of #metoo, is pertinent. Some brave choices have been made but a paradoxical backlash of the changing times that are being celebrated is that the danger is presented in too safe an environment. An intimacy director is credited in the programme but, either because their job was done too well or because they were not really needed, there is little onstage chemistry – dangerous or otherwise – between the two. The physical reality of the production doesn’t match the stinging quality of the words.

Perhaps it is a deliberate avoidance to take sides, but we are never quite sure what the piece is trying to say. Julie’s question “Do you want to fuck me?” goes some way towards epitomising the predicament. She is offended if the answer is ‘yes’ and offended if it is ‘no’. John is damned whatever his answer. As the play progresses the dilemmas darken considerably, yet the confusion remains. Perhaps there are no answers. Perhaps there is still much to be learnt. The BDSM setting seems to be a convenient backdrop to Davies’ drama, just as Strindberg is a starting point. But both seem superfluous. “Smoke” tackles important issues without breaking any real ground, allowing a certain pretentiousness to get in the way. Despite the heated and powerful performances, it shows that sometimes there is smoke without fire.

RADIANT BOY

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★½

“There are some neat, if underplayed, genre twists.”

RADIANT BOY

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 23rd May 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Olivia Spencer

Last ten shows reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

RADIANT BOY

RADIANT BOY

RADIANT BOY

SMOKE at Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★

“The physical reality of the production doesn’t match the stinging quality of the words.”

Reviewed on 3rd February 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Lucy Hayes

Previously reviewed at this venue:

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