In response to high public demand, Simon Friend Entertainment announces an extra week of performances for Second Best at the Riverside Studios. Asa Butterfield stars, having received critical and audience acclaim for his powerful stage debut in this hilarious and heart-breaking one-man play about the road not travelled. Written by Barney Norris and directed by Michael Longhurst, his not-to-be-missed engagement plays a strictly limited run until Saturday 1 March, 2025. Tickets are on sale now for the additional dates at www.secondbestplay.com.
At ten years old, Martin Hill was on the brink of stardom, down to the final two contenders for the role of Harry Potter but narrowly missing out. Now an adult, Martin is about to embark on the ultimate adventure – fatherhood. As he navigates this whirlwind of emotions, he is pulled back to that pivotal moment in his past as he struggles to move beyond imagining what his life might have been.
Second Best is a playful yet poignant new play about fate, near misses and the winding paths life takes. It explores the ache of almost touching greatness and the humour and hope that come when dreams remain just out of reach. A story about the tender moments that shape us, Second Best is for anyone who has ever wondered about the road not taken, and whether the other life would have been as glittering as it looks.
Producer, Simon Friend says of today’s announcement: “I remain completely in awe of the exceptional work of Asa and the entire creative team of Second Best. It’s wonderful to have such public and critical adoration for this one-of-a-kind hilarious and heart-breaking solo performance which we are fortunate enough to now have around for a little bit longer!”
Michael Longhurst is an award-winning stage director and former Artistic Director of The Donmar Warehouse, where he directed, amongst others, Keeley Hawes in The Human Body by Lucy Kirkwood, Next to Normal (four Olivier Award nominations; also West End), The Band’s Visit (six Olivier Award nominations), Rory Kinnear in Force Majeure, Teenage Dick, Belleville starring James Norton, and the Olivier Award-winning multi-cast revival of Nick Payne’s Constellations (originally Royal Court, West End and Broadway). His programming included the globally transferring pandemic sound installation Blindness, a new version of The Cherry Orchard by Benedict Andrews (starring Nina Hoss and Adeel Akhtar) and Macbeth starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo, also transferring to the West End this autumn.
His Chichester production of Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s civil rights-era musical Caroline, or Change, starring Sharon D Clarke in an Olivier Award-winning performance, transferred to the West End and Broadway where it was Tony-nominated for Best Musical Revival.
Other productions include the National Theatre smash hit Amadeus (Olivier Theatre, featuring The Southbank Sinfonia), The Son and Bad Jews (West End), Carmen Disruption (Almeida), A Number (Young Vic), ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore and The Winter’s Tale (Sam Wanamaker) and Between Riverside and Crazy (currently at Hampstead Theatre).
Barney Norris’s work has received awards from the International Theatre Institute, the Critics’ Circle, the Evening Standard, the Society of Authors, and the South Bank Sky Arts Times Breakthrough Awards, among others, and been translated into nine languages. His plays include Visitors, Eventide, Nightfall, The Wellspring and acclaimed adaptations of Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day and Lorca’s Blood Wedding; his novels include the acclaimed Undercurrent and the bestselling Five Rivers Met On A Wooded Plain.
Set and Costume Design will be by Fly Davis.
Second Best is produced by Simon Friend Entertainment.
