The London stage has been peppered with Hollywood stars in recent months, but here are two bona fide homegrown talents. Martin Freeman has been a star ever since he played Tim in The Office a quarter of a century ago, while Jack Lowden is best known as one of the down-at-heel spooks in Slow Horses. These two very different actors have come together to explore masculinity, addiction and religion in this visceral two-hander by David Ireland.
As the title suggests, the setting is Alcoholics Anonymous. Freeman's older, grumpier James is the sponsor of crackly energy ball Luka, who can't settle. At the start Luka is lonely and wonders if he is an incel, but that soon appears to be the least of his problems. He's an intelligent but trouble young man struggling to find a place in the modern world. He shuttles between looking to James for help and lashing out at him.
This intense 90-minute piece (no interval) is directed by Finn Den Hertog. The in-the-round set, by Milla Clarke, is little more than a few chairs and paper cups. Ireland has drawn on his own early twenties when he says his drinking was out of control and he was in the "wilderness".
The play premiered in Edinburgh last summer but viewed now it brings the controversial, provocative Netflix drama Adolescence to mind in the moments when it explores the nature of masculinity. Lowden's Luka is on an intense emotional rollercoaster, at one point jogging, disco dancing and shadow boxing around the stage. He is utterly magnetic. Freeman's James is literally buttoned up and compellingly low-key.
Their conversations are more like verbal sparring matches. Sometimes James is in control but Luka lands knockout blows too. At one point Luka finds religion. Could this be an answer or will it send him spiralling into a different kind of addiction?
The dynamic between them is just one of the intriguing elements here. Luka envies married James for having "pussy on tap", but as James points out in a comic exchange that maybe doesn't quite add up, things are not that simple.
This is very much not a comedy but sparks of humour are never far from the surface in Ireland's flinty, multi-pronged script, while a pair of giant rabbit ears provides some visual light relief. When James suggests that Luka masturbates too much he suggests that he should shower. Luka responds that with all the showering and wanking he'd have no time for anything else. There's a neat one-liner about Elton John, although it does suggest that the Rocket Man never went to AA and Google suggests that he did.
But this is a small niggle in a riveting piece that hooks you in from the start and never lets you go. I've loved the screen work of Freeman and Lowden but they have never been better than they are here.
@sohoplace until July 26. Buy tickets here.
Picture by Johan Persson
****
