The UK premiere of playwright Florian Zeller’s ‘The Son’, part of a trilogy with ‘The Father’ and ‘The Mother’, took place at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London’s West End.  The play has transferred from the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn, after a very successful sold-out season from February to April.

This excellent drama is directed by the award-winning Michael Longhurst, translated by Christopher Hampton and stars Amanda Abbington, John Light, Laurie Kynaston and Amaka Okafor.

The Son follows what happens when teenager Nicolas, in an unnervingly  beautiful and sensitive portrayal by Laurie Kynaston, goes through a painful and difficult phase following his parents’ divorce. He is extremely unhappy and listless, self-harming, missing school, and lying about it. He thinks moving away from his mother Anne’s care to live with his lawyer father Pierre, new wife Sofia and baby son, will help him make a new start. This does not happen and he wants to return to his mother.

Amaka Okafor's Sofia radiates homely warmth and thinks Nicolas weird.  Amanda Abbington is a haunted Anne, vibrating with energy, John Light the uptight workaholic Pierre.  The play fizzes with raw emotion - emotionally stirring, and beautifully and powerfully portrayed, with many twists along the way. Laurie Kynaston researched his role in The Son, by talking to his own mother.  The actor plays a schoolboy, whose divorced parents struggle to help him with collapsing mental health.  His own mother is a nurse in an all girls school and works with troubled teenage girls.  The result is a performance with frightening realism.