In Radiant Boy, playwright Nancy Netherwood conjures a haunting, genre-blurring tale that lingers like a chill. Now playing at Southwark Playhouse Borough, this taut, 100-minute chamber piece is part gothic ghost story, part psychological drama, and wholly compelling.
Set in the 1980s in a modest northern home, the play follows Russell (Stuart Thompson), a withdrawn music student who has returned to his mother Maud’s (Wendy Nottingham) house under mysterious and troubling circumstances. He hears voices, sees things, and is increasingly consumed by something—or someone—unseen. Enter Father Miller (Ben Allen), a priest with a penchant for “Psycho Divinity,” a modern twist on exorcism, who arrives to confront the darkness that has taken hold.
This is a slow-burning, emotionally charged exploration of grief, repression, and the ghosts—literal and metaphorical—that haunt us. Netherwood’s script is rich with ambiguity, refusing to offer easy answers. Is Russell possessed, mentally unwell, or simply crushed under the weight of familial and societal expectations? The play wisely leaves that question open, allowing the audience to sit with the discomfort.
Director Júlia Levai handles the material with remarkable restraint. The exorcism scenes rather than being too over the top are rendered with eerie stillness and emotional precision. Levai’s staging is intimate and immersive, with the audience encircling the action, heightening the sense of claustrophobia and voyeurism.
Thomas Palmer’s set design —a lived-in lounge with period details— impresses with its intimacy and by the spectral presence of Renée Lamb’s “voice,” a ghostly figure who sings haunting folk melodies and hymns that only Russell can hear.
Thompson captures Russell’s fragility and volatility with nuance, while Nottingham’s Maud is a study in maternal detachment, her coldness masking a deep, unspoken sorrow. Allen’s Father Miller is a fascinating figure—measured, methodical, and quietly unsettling.
While the play touches on themes of queerness, religious guilt, and societal alienation, it does so obliquely. The absence of direct reference to the AIDS crisis, despite the 1980s setting, is notable—perhaps a deliberate choice to let that particular spectre loom unspoken.
Radiant Boy invites contemplation, leaving its audience with more questions than answers. It’s a bold, atmospheric piece of theatre that dares to dwell in the shadows—and finds something radiant there.
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