The Fifth Step
90 minutes, no interval
The Fifth Step - 2025 West End History , Info & More
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After many years in the 12-step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous, James agrees to become the sponsor of newcomer Luka.
On the journey to sobriety, the pair bond over black coffee, trade stories, and build a fragile friendship out of their shared experiences.
On the cusp of Step 5, their conversations must turn to confessionals, with progress hinging on Luka revealing secrets that could lead back to alcohol. But it’s clear that James also has dangerous truths in his past, truths that threaten the trust on which both their recoveries depend.
Following an acclaimed sold-out Edinburgh season, Olivier Award-winner Jack Lowden (Slow Horses, Dunkirk) reprises his role as Luka joined in the West End by Emmy, BAFTA and SAG Award winner Martin Freeman (The Responder, Sherlock) as James.
Directed intimately in-the-round by Finn den Hertog, The Fifth Step is a provocative, entertaining and subversively funny new play from David Ireland.
The Fifth Step - 2025 - West End Cast
FEATURED REVIEWS FOR The Fifth Step
Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman go head to head
8 / 10
What power do you give another when you put your faith in them? What standards do you hold them to when you seek advice? When does care turn into control? As the questions proliferate and the pair argue over setting boundaries, Ireland continually blurs them in a play that regularly elicits winces. “Those that are crying will later be laughing,” paraphrases James from the Bible. The reverse is perhaps true for this troubling take on feeling lost and the thorny question of redemption.
Revised from its run at Edinburgh International Festival in 2024, David Ireland's new play is a star-studded success.
10 / 10
Den Hertog’s vision materialises in the precise pacing of the dialogues and the clear division of physical movement. He toys with the flow between the two bodies, shaking the scenes up regularly so that one of the performances turns waspish and prompts another thematic juncture. Once the jig is up, the balance found in the first 45 minutes flips onto its head. Freeman’s performance explodes into its full potential, making us question who the serene, placid guy from the start was. Added to Lowden’s minuscule changes in bearing, we have a mesmerising spectacle of acting prowess set up by Ireland’s extraordinarily pliable writing.
by Aliya Al-Hassan - May 20, 2025
After many years in the 12-step programme of Alcoholics Anonymous, James agrees to become the sponsor of newcomer Luka. On the cusp of Step 5, their conversations must turn to confessionals, with progress hinging on Luka revealing secrets that could lead back to alcohol. But it’s clear that James also has dangerous truths in his past, truths that threaten the trust on which both their recoveries depend.
by Cindy Marcolina - May 19, 2025
Plays like The Fifth Step don't come around often. Those whose layered philosophical exoskeleton props up their own dramatic contradictions in quietly superb theatre. At its core, though less pure black comedy and more complex introspective drama coated in dark irony than what you’d expect from David Ireland, it has that delicious push-and-pull that only Ireland can write. It’s a potluck of themes. Alcoholism, recovery, resentment, masculinity, spirituality, family, class, what-have-you populate a play that’s as tense as it is caustic.
by Chloe Rabinowitz - May 14, 2025
You can now get a first look at photos of the West End transfer of David Ireland’s acclaimed new play The Fifth Step, starring Jack Lowden and Martin Freeman. See photos here!
The Fifth Step History
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