Nancy Netherwood's RADIANT BOY Will Debut at Southwark Playhouse Borough
Performances run 21 May – 14 June 2025.
The world premiere of Nancy Netherwood’s Radiant Boy will debut at Southwark Playhouse Borough – following its inclusion in the RSC’s 37 Plays competition in 2023. Júlia Levai directs Stuart Thompson and Renée Lamb in this brand-new play with music about faith, shame and queerness.
Radiant Boy opens at Southwark Playhouse Borough on 21 May and runs until 14 June. Press night will be held on 23 May.
Full cast to be announced shortly.
Nancy Netherwood said today, “I’m beyond thrilled to be bringing Radiant Boy to life at Southwark Playhouse with such an incredible team both onstage and off. The intimate space of ‘The Little’ auditorium is perfect for an intense, claustrophobic exorcism story - we can really crank up the tension and eeriness, but hopefully you’ll also feel part of Russell’s journey of queer self-acceptance. I can’t wait to fill the space with North East folk music and 80s New Wave!”.
With support from Arts Council England, the production will also recruit two trainee producers, offer shadowing opportunities for ten industry newcomers and host a series of wrap-around events, including captioned performances. More information on this will be released shortly.
North-East England, 1983. As a snowstorm rages outside, trainee singer Russell and his mother Maud await the arrival of a young priest who believes Russell is a victim of possession.
Winner of the RSC's 37 plays competition, Radiant Boy is a new play about faith, shame and queerness and finding connection through art.
Stuart Thompson plays Russell. His theatre credits include Three Sisters (Shakespeare’s Globe), Ghosts (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), The Narcissist (Chichester Festival Theatre), Spring Awakening (Almeida Theatre), Living Newspaper (Royal Court Theatre), Did I Wake You? (Young Vic) and A Taste of Honey (National Theatre). His television credits include SAS Rogue Heroes, Starstruck, The Witcher and Unprecedented: Viral. In 2022, Stuart won The Jack Tinker Award for Most Promising Newcomer at the Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards.
Renée Lamb plays Steph/The Voice. Her theatre credits at Southwark Playhouse include Ain't Misbehavin’. Other theatre credits include Passing Strange (Young Vic), Cake (Lyric Theatre, The Other Palace), Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World, Malory Towers (UK tours) Be More Chill (The Other Place, Shaftesbury Theatre), Little Shop of Horrors (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre) and SIX (Arts Theatre). Her television credits include This Town and Still so Awkward; and for film, This is the Night Mail.
Nancy Netherwood is a playwright and screenwriter. Her playwriting credits at Southwark Playhouse include Warm Lonely Planet. Other playwriting credits include Goodnight, Mr Spindrift (Old Red Lion Theatre) and Just Like the Films (Royal Court Theatre); and for screenwriting, Kill Joy Jukebox. Netherwood was a writer in residence at the North Wall for their Catalyst Festival in 2019 and is currently part of the London Library Emerging Writers Programme.
Júlia Levai directs. Her directing credits at Southwark Playhouse include Smoke. Other directing credits include We’ll Be Who We Are (VAULT Festival), Northern Girls (Pilot Theatre), Did I Wake You? (Young Vic as part of ‘Five Plays’), The Prince of Homburg (The Space) and There Has Possibly Been an Incident (Blue Elephant Theatre). Her assistant and associate directing credits include Coriolanus, Dear Octopus (National Theatre), Hope Has a Happy Meal (Royal Court Theatre), All’s Well That Ends Well (RSC), L’Illusion Comique (National Theatre in Belgrade, Serbia) and Nora: A Doll’s House (Young Vic). Levai is an MGCFutures bursary recipient and was previously Director in Residence at The National Theatre in Belgrade, Serbia. She is a script reader for NT Studio, Papatango Prize, The Bruntwood Prize and The Women’s Prize for Playwriting.
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