By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: **** RUNTIME: 90 minutes (without interval)

WHEN?: Saturday 1 February (matinee), runs through 22 February 2025 Update: now extended through 1 March 2025

It’s not difficult to imagine what might have attracted former child star Asa Butterfield, now best known for Netflix’s Sex Education, to make his stage debut in this tale of the actor who was second choice to Daniel Radcliffe (Endgame, Old Vic) to play Harry Potter (Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, Palace Theatre).

• Read on for reasons including how this is a story that is both hugely relatable and dramatically satisfying

Who hasn’t wondered what might have happened if things had turned out differently for them and they had been offered their dream job, not met the love of their life or had the children that they had always wanted?

Butterfield, now 27, was the lead in historical drama film The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas in 2008 aged just 10, and Second Best introduces us to his character Martin Hill in hospital at the 3-month scan of his 1st child in Paris, France.

As we arrive into the venue, Butterfield is already onstage, sometimes seated and occasionally pacing up and down, as if loitering in a hospital waiting room nervously anticipating seeing the image of his son-to-be from his partner’s womb.

Second Best is based on a novel originally in French by David Foenkinos and adapted by Barney Norris (Nightfall, Bridge Theatre) and is realised onstage as a 90-minute monologue, quite the challenge for anyone let alone a TV and film star making their stage debut.

We’re here because we enjoyed Butterfield as lead Otis in Sex Education and he’s 1 of a number of stars from the show who have broken out into theatre as a result including now Doctor Who Ncuti Gatwa (The Importance Of Being Earnest, National Theatre) and Aimee Lou Wood (Cabaret, Kit Kat Club, Playhouse Theatre and Uncle Vanya, Harold Pinter Theatre).

The good news for fans of his from Sex Education is that he has the charisma to hold a live audience for an hour and a half with his storytelling alone and Martin is not a million miles from an older Otis, talking a lot, analysing his actions and offering self-deprecating and often funny commentary on his behaviour.

He’s inhabiting a white, studio-like box set that director Michael Longhurst (The Human Body, Donmar) fills ingeniously with devices to propel the narrative including half-demolished supermarket shelves of crisps, a cupboard under the stairs where a bullied Martin can hide and a hospital bed in a psychiatric ward where he can attempt to piece himself back together again.

The 3rd act was a little over the top but the writing was beautiful and skilfully brought together at the end for a denouement that we weren’t expecting and found both elegant and moving.

Butterfield should feel proud because there’s nothing more difficult in theatre than performing alone for quite so long and rather than being exposed we were entertained and look forward to his next choice of stage material because this was a faultless performance that left us empathising with the perhaps unlikely notion that being first choice might not always be what it’s cracked up to be.

Second Best has a limited run at this newish, out-of-town venue, is the 1st time we’ve seen this talented actor in both a stage and adult role and we very much enjoyed the 90 minutes in his company and a story that is both hugely relatable and dramatically satisfying.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Riverside Studios, Hammersmith Tickets
• Have you seen an Asa Butterfield show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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