Review Roundup: David Ireland's THE FIFTH STEP @sohoplace

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.

Following an acclaimed sold-out Edinburgh season, Olivier Award-winner Jack Lowden reprises his role as Luka joined in the West End by Emmy, BAFTA and SAG Award winner Martin Freeman 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.

What did the critics think?

The Fifth Step is @sohoplace until 26 July

Photo Credit: Johan Persson

Cindy Marcolina, BroadwayWorld: 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.

Chris Wiegand, The Guardian: 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.

Sarah Crompton, WhatsOnStage: A lot has changed since David Ireland’s The Fifth Step had its premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival last August. It’s still a play that teeters between comedy and dark horror, as it examines the relationship between Luka, a young man struggling to conquer his addiction, and James, the older man who becomes his mentor when he joins Alcoholics Anonymous. But it has been substantially rewritten and also recast. Jack Lowden still plays Luka, turning him into a compelling mix of jittery unhappiness and wounded righteousness as he goes on a journey that takes him from despair – “I think I might be an incel” – through dubious revelation, to the knowledge that he isn’t the only one in this relationship with problems.

Andrzej Lukowski, TimeOut: It’s a strange play: if Ireland has reined in the bad taste stuff, he remains a swearword-heavy comic writer with a specialty in bruising one-liners. But he never commits to a tone: a scene in which Luka hallucinates that James has bunny ears is quite funny but the cartoonish questioning of his sanity needlessly muddies what his whole deal is. In general, Finn den Herzog’s minimalist production is tentative about grabbing the material by the scruff of the neck. The fact the play is specifically set in Glasgow gets drowned out and feels like it’s more a nod to Lowden’s accent more than anything reflected in Milla Clarke’s sterile set.

Clive Davis, The Times: By the end, we’re much less sure that James has the upper hand. Luka confronts his sense of shame, sometimes in comically brutish language (his definition of marriage is having “pussy on tap”). What we see of James’s inner life begins to seem less serene than we first thought. Ireland conveys all this through memorably jagged exchanges bathed in redeeming black humour.

Dominic Cavendish, The Telegraph: I’d love to salute this as the writer’s deserved hour of triumph, not least because this piece transmutes his painful experience into the stuff of accessible entertainment. The author attended AA when he was in his twenties and like Lowden’s lost soul, who grabs our attention at the start by opening up to Freeman’s James about his lack of luck with women, and addiction to porn, he has said he struggled with dating then. Like Luka, too, who surreally claims to have encountered Jesus in the guise of Willem Dafoe on a gym treadmill, he had a religious epiphany that saved him.

Sarah Hemming, Financial Times: The play dances to and fro, interweaving serious questions with crisply funny dialogue and combining the absurd with the profound. Luka’s awakening, for instance, arrives on a treadmill at the gym when he is apparently joined by Jesus in the guise of actor Willem Dafoe. In Finn den Hertog’s tightly paced production, the action plays out like a boxing match, which works wonderfully in Soho Place’s in-the-round space. Milla Clarke’s spare design — a table and a few chairs — has dispensed with the set the show had in Edinburgh, leaving the two actors exposed, in tune with their characters’ feelings.

Alice Saville, The Independent: Lowden explodes with half-suppressed energy as Luka, an unemployed, sex-obsessed alcoholic desperate to pummel his wayward life into shape. Help comes in the form of James, a fellow AA member who’s been sober for decades, but this middle-aged sad dad isn’t always the best advocate for his booze-free lifestyle. The everyguy authenticity that has made Freeman a telly regular is lost a little here, in a slightly underwhelming stage performance. Instead, this play’s appeal comes from the hilarious clashes between Luka’s blunt literal-mindedness and James’s patronising obfuscation. “Cultivate a relationship with yourself,” advises the older man. “I thought you said I wasn’t meant to do that any more!” says Luka, battling to beat his 20-a-day masturbation habit.

Holly O'Mahony , London Theatre: It’s a serious subject matter, but scorching one-liners, usually delivered by a deadpan Lowden but sometimes a quick-to-bite Freeman, ensure the play remains surprisingly funny at every turn. And the pair bring compelling opposing energies, with Freeman’s initially upbeat, delicately curious James a delicious contrast to Holden’s blunt, unfiltered Luka. Whether tender or troubling, chemistry always bubbles between them as they ping-pong through Ireland’s terse script.

Average Rating: 75.6%