Review: Laughing Boy, Jermyn Street Theatre - urgent and emotional
01/05/2024
Adapted from Sara Ryan's book 'Justice For Laughing Boy' this is a story about a mother's fight to find the truth about her 18-year-old son's death in a bath in an NHS facility.
Connor (Alfie Friedman), or Laughing Boy as his family calls him, has learning difficulties and epilepsy. He likes lorries and buses and often carries around a model of a red double-decker bus.
The play mixes happy family scenes from the past with the lead-up to Connor's admission to the unit and the subsequent campaign to find out what happened.
Connor's absence is, ironically, demonstrated in the fact that he is always there.
The conversation never shifts far from him, but micro-stories and examples of Connor in life are played out in interactions with his family, his comments and questions or when he simply sits playing with his bus.
Aside from Alfie Friedman and Janie Dee, the rest of the cast take on the menagerie of antagonists (medical staff and their representatives) and supporters of the family, lawyers and advisors.
The stage is plain white, and the back wall curves around and acts as a screen for family photos, text messages, emails and documents. It feels almost like a docudrama, told primarily through Sara's eyes.
Janie Dee is all grief and grit as the loving mother behind whom a massive campaign of support is built. She is stoic in public, even when the medical staff condescend and call her 'mum,' but sweary, angry and sad behind the scenes.
This is not always easy to watch. It's a play that lays bare its heart and soul and evokes a myriad of emotions.
And it almost gets too much. As we enter the final act, it already feels like we've climbed an emotional mountain; the stream of images and photos has the potential to feel perhaps too calculated.
A lot of theatre describes itself as 'urgent', but Laughing Boy is a story that genuinely earns that stamp. It is also a play with a true hero, a hero's journey and the bittersweetest of endings.
It made me smile, it made me angry, and it definitely made me cry (and I wasn't alone); I'm giving it ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Laughing Boy, Jermyn Street Theatre
Adapted by Stephen Unwin from Sara Ryan's Justice for Laughing Boy
Directed by Stephen Unwin
Starring: Janie Dee and Forbes Masson.
Running time is 1 hour and 40 minutes without an interval.
Booking until 31 May; for more details and tickets, visit the Jermyn Street Theatre website
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