★★★½

“Birch’s experimentation in form is carefully considered and exciting”

Written by Alice Birch, ‘Romans, A Novel’ is, first and foremost, an ambitious play. Spanning about 150 years, it traces the lives of the three improbably slow-aging Roman brothers. It explores themes including masculinity, trauma, individualism, and grief, paying homage to the novel as an enduring literary form all the while. Its approach is of the epic kind, unusual for our day and age, while its exploration of masculinity could not be more topical. Still, ‘Romans’ does not manage to live up to its full potential.

The story is set in three eras, which are matched by the novelistic form roughly dominant at the time depicted. The first half of the play takes place in the first four decades of the 20th century, tracing the lives of the brothers in a somewhat chronological and realist fashion. World War Two features only as a break both in the play and in style – the postwar era and present day which feature after the interval take on a much more fragmentary and satirical tone in homage to modernist and postmodernist literary traditions. Under Sam Pritchard’s direction, the cast jumps effectively between these different styles, while Agnes O’Casey (as the eldest brother’s wife and daughter) and Stuart Thompson (as Edmund, the youngest Roman brother) offer particularly vivid standout performances.

Birch’s experimentation in form is carefully considered and exciting but, beyond the stylistic, her joint engagement with the novel and masculinity feels incomplete. Literary scholars have argued that the eighteenth-century origins of the novel are intertwined with the rise of individualism and a modern understanding of the self. The novel’s fascination with the individual resounds in the selfishness that characterises masculinity in the play, something illustrated by Marlow (Oliver Johnstone) and Jack’s (Kyle Soller) obsession with professional success and disregard for their wives and children. But much of the effectiveness of a novel depends on the strength of its narrative voice and the compelling idiosyncrasies of its characters. This is something Birch’s play lacks. By dealing mostly in fleeting but familiar male types – the cruel boarding school master, the druggy cult guru, the obnoxious billionaire –, ‘Romans’ feels like a slideshow of performed masculinities rather than a more fundamental, psychological exploration of what produces them. The most compelling character is the youngest Roman brother, Edmund (Stuart Thompson), who fails to live up to expectations of manliness, but his story is given frustratingly little time on stage. As such, Birch fails to fully convey an original take on her subject matter in this two-and-a-half-hour whirlwind of a story.

Despite this, it’s a compelling watch: the staging is gorgeous, with Merle Hensel’s stunning revolving platform being used to great effect in combination with movement director Hannes Langlof’s careful choreography. Lee Curran’s moody lighting provides an especially atmospheric quality to the first half of the play and, together with Benjamin Grant’s sound design, greatly aids the depiction of a tragic suicide in the first act.

Ambitious and sprawling, Alice Birch’s play is a fascinating experiment in form, though perhaps this is also its weak point. While its engagement with masculinity ultimately feels more descriptive than analytical, ‘Romans’ is an exciting watch.

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.

ROMANS: A NOVEL

Almeida Theatre

★★★½

“Birch’s experimentation in form is carefully considered and exciting”

ROMANS: A NOVEL

Almeida Theatre

Reviewed on 18th September 2025

by Lola Stakenburg

Photography by Marc Brenner

Previously reviewed at this venue:

ROMANS

ROMANS

ROMANS

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

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