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

PAPER CUT at the Park Theatre

★★½

“Excepting the performances, everything feels a bit “debut”, despite the creative team’s impressive programme credits”

Kyle has spent his whole life desperate to be in the army. Idolising his father who was a soldier, he’s sacrificed the possibility of love, both romantic and familial, to ensure his military future. When he meets Chuck while serving in Afghanistan, he starts to wonder if he can have both. But after stepping on an IED, his hopes are upended.

Paper Cut by Andrew Rosendorf poses some important questions about masculinity, family loyalty, and love. The idea that gay men should have had to hide their sexual orientation in order to serve is rightly highlighted as bizarre and destructive, and the idea, too, that romantic love requires sex is called in to question.

Kyle’s relationship with his twin brother Jack is a brilliant example of unconditional love, of caring for someone even after they’ve betrayed you for their own ends. Joe Bollard as Jack is warm and awkward, laughs and tears coming as easily as each other, and he’s a brilliant counterpart to his overly intense brother.

Prince Kundai, who plays love interest Chuck, is charismatic and lovable. Entirely comfortable in his own skin, and endearingly sincere, it’s easy to see how he and Kyle might slip from friends to lovers.

Tobie Donovan, playing Harry, another love interest, is sweet and ridiculous. He’s got great comic timing and even gets a few laughs where I’m not sure there was supposed to be one.

While the plot itself is gritty and melancholy, the script feels a little too sentimental, relying on clichés and long…meaningful…pauses. Callum Mardy (Kyle) seems to get the bulk of these staring-off-in-the-distance speeches about the meaning of serving your country and so forth, and it overrides the genuine tragedy of his story, with him coming off a little ridiculous.

The script’s final lines, for example, completely diminish the fervent conversation that preceded them, as Kyle and Chuck look out at the sunset: “If you could go back and change anything, would you?”/ “So much.” The end. It’s just a bit lazy. And it’s a shame because in Mardy’s moments of levity, irony and even anger, he shows his capabilities, but he’s let down by the script’s sap.

Sorcha Corcoran’s design, a simple wooden backwall with a row of inbuilt storage chests, works fine, serving its practical purpose of hiding props and keeping the stage clean. That is, until the penultimate scene when before, in the cover of dark, the stage is scattered with gold confetti. This all comes to make sense when the final scene takes place on the beach, but less so when we’re in Jack’s apartment. Why not just wait a minute, and scatter the confetti directly before the beach scene? Or, given how minimalist the rest of the set is, why do it at all?

Lucia Sanchez Roldan’s lighting design is inoffensive: Strip lights hang from the ceiling, changing colours throughout. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with the story though, and seems a bit “designy” for the sake of it.

Excepting the performances, everything feels a bit “debut”, despite the creative team’s impressive programme credits. That said, there’s plenty to work with, and nothing a bit of red ink couldn’t fix.

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

PAPER CUT at the Park Theatre

★★½

“Excepting the performances, everything feels a bit “debut”, despite the creative team’s impressive programme credits”

Prince Kundai, who plays love interest Chuck, is charismatic and lovable. Entirely comfortable in his own skin, and endearingly sincere, it’s easy to see how he and Kyle might slip from friends to lovers.

Tobie Donovan, playing Harry, another love interest, is sweet and ridiculous. He’s got great comic timing and even gets a few laughs where I’m not sure there was supposed to be one.

Lucia Sanchez Roldan’s lighting design is inoffensive: Strip lights hang from the ceiling, changing colours throughout. It doesn’t seem to have much to do with the story though, and seems a bit “designy” for the sake of it.

Excepting the performances, everything feels a bit “debut”, despite the creative team’s impressive programme credits. That said, there’s plenty to work with, and nothing a bit of red ink couldn’t fix.

Reviewed on 12th June 2023

by Miriam Sallon

Photography by Stefan Hanegraaf

Previously reviewed at this venue:

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