There are few certainties in David Ireland’s latest drama. It is slippery yet sincere, funny but serious, with an ending that might leave you none the wiser. A young out-of-work alcoholic is unsure about joining the 12-step programme until a former addict sweeps in as his sponsor to save him, or so it seems. Luka (Jack Lowden) meets the older James (Sean Gilder) through Alcoholics Anonymous. The play’s focus (or maybe it is James’s) is the fifth step towards recovery, which requires writing down all the things that bring guilt and shame – to share with a trusted friend.
James seems fatherly at first, but becomes angrily judgmental; Luka is uncertain of himself but then confrontational and fatherly. Certainties continue to be unpinned, just like Milla Clarke’s revolving set, which partly collapses to show its innards until nothing seems straightforwardly real.
