By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: **** RUNTIME: 110 minutes (with interval)

WHEN?: Saturday 24 May (matinee), runs through 14 June 2025

Russell is a singing student with cropped bleached blond hair who returns to his north-east home in the 80s where his single mother calls the local priest to exorcise her son’s demons.

• Read on for reasons including how this is truly shocking and 1 of the best new plays of the year

Nancy Netherwood’s new play with music initially partitions the front room where the action takes place with a see-through curtain that partially obscures what we are seeing as Wendy Nottingham’s unhappy Maud learns the trouble plaguing her sensitive son has returned.

Renee Lamb’s (Passing Strange, Young Vic) The Voice stalks the perimeter of the front room barefoot occasionally singing folk songs acapella brushing past those of us in the front row adding to the sense of menace and threat we are feeling.

Radiant Boy: A Haunting also uses snatches of pop hits from the period it is evoking brilliantly and we marvel alongside Stuart Thompson’s (Spring Awakening, Almeida) troubled and highly-strung Russell to the heart tunes of New Order, The Cure, David Bowie’s Modern Love and Yazoo’s Only You.

Growing up gay is confusing in any era but to be doing so in the 80s when hysteria about AIDS is at its height is especially terrifying and we are sceptical about the local folklore of the radiant boy who is illuminated and forecasts the imminent deaths of those he interacts with.

Ben Allen plays Father Miller who is grieving his mother’s recent death and wants to bring out the spirit haunting Russell and the climax of this act the clergyman isn’t calling a demonic possession is our interval.

There is much in Radiant Boy: A Haunting that is hinted at but not said which is very much to its credit.

We also loved the small details which very much add to the weight of this new writing including how Russell’s best friend Steph, also played by Lamb, loves the voice of Yazoo lead singer Alison Moyet.

The play’s end is truly shocking and we were left marvelling at the way folk music is used to both be familiar and yet unsettle while pop music represents heart and classical music intellectual ideals.

Definitely 1 of the best new plays of the year and well worth catching at this intimate setting before it returns somewhere bigger for a return run.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Southwark Playhouse. Main picture by Olivia Spencer Tickets
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