Leo Butler’s Boy casts a sharp look at contemporary London and reunites director-designer team Sacha Wares and Miriam Buether at the Almeida Theatre. But what have critics made of the production?
The Guardian:***Michael Billington commented: “Butler is absolutely right to draw attention to a lost generation struggling to survive without parental or institutional help, but I wish the play had been staged without quite such self-advertising virtuosity.”
Evening Standard:**** Fiona Mountford wrote that: “It’s not a great piece of drama per se but director Sacha Wares and set designer Miriam Buether make it quietly magnificent.”
London Theatre.co.uk:***** Mark Shenton described it as: “Sometimes chilling, always rigorous, and finally quietly overwhelming.”
WhatsOnStage: **** Matt Trueman thought that it was: “Not an enjoyable watch, but an important one – not least in charging us to change. Exemplary in so many ways.”
Theatre Cat: *** “Writer Leo Butler and the creative team have created something not quite a play, but ultimately a sort of art installation expressing London’s modern underside and restless, roadworky neurosis. Look at it that way, and it is rather magnificent.”
Time Out:****Andrzej Lukowski was also enthusiastic saying: “It’s not a play to make you feel good about the world. But it’s an audacious piece of theatre-making that’s does its bit through sheer depth of empathy.”
Radio Times: Fiona Hughes wrote: “Director Sacha Wares, designer Miriam Buether and movement director Liam Baugh have conjured magic and provided plenty to look at.”
The Telegraph:**** Jane Shilling commented: “its power to disturb is all the more troubling because it offers neither accusation nor redemption.”
The Upcoming: **** Luisa Kapp said: “inarguably an intelligent portrayal of what it is like to grow up in uncertainty and captures the spirit of contemporary London’s youth culture.”
British Theatre Guide: “an exhilarating, holistic stage experience like few others that this seasoned critic can recall.”
Official London Theatre: “Leo Butler’s Boy is a short, sharp, poignant production that could change your view of everyone you pass today.”
Sketches on Theatre: “Director Sacha Wares’ audacious production comes amazingly – excitingly – close to de-railing (literally) throughout this short but packed theatrical event.”
Boy runs at the Almeida Theatre until the 28th May. For more information and to book tickets visit: http://www.almeida.co.uk/whats-on/boy/5-apr-2016-28-may-2016 .