Laughing Boy by Stephen Unwin. Jermyn Street Theatre, 16B Jermyn Street, London SW1 to 25 May 2024 and then at the Theatre Royal, Bath. 5✩✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.
Photo Credit: Alex Brenner.
Laughing Boy by Stephen Unwin. Jermyn Street Theatre, 16B Jermyn Street, London SW1 to 25 May 2024 and then at the Theatre Royal, Bath.
5✩✩✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.
“Harrowing, beguiling, magnificent and finely performed.”
This harrowing but beguiling account of the life and death of Connor Sparrowhawk, the autistic and epileptic son of Professor Sara Ryan, written and directed by Stephen Unwin is a fine a piece of campaigning theatre. Based on Ryan’s book Justice for Laughing Boy about the campaign she waged after his death in an institution which failed to provide any of the care it claimed it would let alone had given. It is now closed. Unwin has secured fine performances from his cast led by Janie Dee as Ryan and from Alfie Friedman as the impossible enchanting Connor, autistic, difficult as a child and even more so as a young man when he also suffered from epilepsy. But Connor was also funny, clever, and loved London buses more than anything. Friedman, himself a disabled actor, gives a heart warming performance and plays off Janie Dee, impressive as Ryan, very well. It is difficult doing justice to real people but under Unwin’s direction they certainly do. The rest of the cast – Forbes Masson has the same task playing Ryan’s partner as well as other roles – display versatility throughout the evening playing the good, the bad and the truly despicable. While Connor was under age somehow everyone managed to cope with looking after him but when he became an adult it all changed, the necessary care simply wasn’t there in the NHS. A desperate Ryan followed a suggestion by a friend to send him for respite care Slade House in Oxford an NHS treatment unit run by Southern Health Trust to care for autistic people. Connor was there for 107 days, received no care and died drowned in his bath after he had an epileptic seizure. Unwin follows Sara’s fight for justice for her son in which, of course, she came up against the Slade House lawyers, endless buck passing by doctors and staff, and the problems of the system – there had to be an inquest and it mattered whether there was a jury or not. Sara’s Justice for Laughing Boy campaign was a success but whether anything has changed is another matter. The play is performed against a simple curved wall painted cream with one door – there are four chairs. From time to time family photographs are projected behind the players which add to the play’s impact. You see the real Connor, a laughing boy indeed. It is a heart rending play but one which also plays a tribute to the memory of a boy who did not deserve what happened. It deserves a wider audience than the Jermyn Street Theatre can provide, but all credit to it for staging the piece.
Cast
Janie Dee – Sara Ryan.
Leo Braithwaite – Owen.
Alfie Friedman – Connor.
Charlie Ives – Will.
Forbes Masson – Rich.
Molly Osborne – Rosie.
David Rainford – Tom.
Creatives
Director – Stephen Unwin.
Designer – Simon Higlett.
Lighting Designer – Ben Ormerod.
Sound Designer – Holly Khan.
Video Designer –Matt Powell.
