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

The Wellspring

Royal and Derngate Theatre

Reviewed – 24th March 2022

★★★

“a charming vignette of the relationship between a son and his father”

The stage of the Theatre Royal is stripped back to its battered rear wall (Designer Rosie Elnile). Within the space stands a trailer full of property – someone is moving house perhaps – tables, chairs, carpet, a music stand. Seemingly abandoned at the front of the stage is a rather strange looking piano. A projection screen (Video Design Megan Lucas) resembles a giant mobile phone. It shows two compasses inscribed with town names: London – Paris – Oxford – Long Buckby. We soon discover the relevance of each of these places for one or other of our two characters.

These characters are father and son, David and Barney. Played by real life father and son, concert pianist David Owen Norris and playwright Barney Norris. And co-authored by them too. It is a curious piece scripted as a play with the subtitle “A Memory Cycle”. It is essentially a series of alternating monologues with some small amount of interaction between the two actor/performer/family members. Jude Christian directs their effortless movement around the stage.

David softly plays the piano whilst Barney talks. Barney (inexplicably) cooks dinner during David’s turn. Home video images from thirty years ago are projected onto the screen, sharing with us a small part of their past lives together. David relates some stories, mere snippets of story really, about how he has reached this point in his career; he seems satisfied with how things have turned out. Barney worries about where his career is heading; he seems anxious of his future. David says of Barney near the end, “You’ve made your story sadder than mine” and we feel that the younger man hasn’t yet found what he is looking for; this collaboration being part of his search for an answer.

There’s an ample amount of humour in the narration. This audience enjoys the references to speaking with a Northamptonshire accent, so rarely heard nowadays, even in Northampton. And there is some pain too: the audience sighs in empathy of David’s experiences in Sydney and at Barney’s bruising street encounter.

The musical interludes that reflect the stories are delightful. David’s doodlings at the keyboard appear effortless: Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Elgar, even some pieces of his own. Barney turns the tables and takes his own place on the piano stool for some Schubert. Barney’s soft baritone renditions of both faux and real English folk songs make you realise he has other talents if the script-writing business goes south.

This short performance is a charming vignette of the relationship between a son and his father. Is there anything to be learned from their cycle of memories? “You take the music where you find it” is the most profound reflection to carry away from the evening. Perhaps too, a desire to hear Barney sing in a real folk club and to hear David play on a proper piano.

Tag Archives: Tomas Palmer

RADIANT BOY

★★½

Southwark Playhouse Borough

RADIANT BOY

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★½

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