Broadway review by Adam Feldman
Playing a British hooligan who doesn’t know his own strength in the new drama Punch, Will Harrison is a knockout. James Graham’s play is inspired by the real story of Jacob Dunne, as laid out in his 2022 memoir, Right from Wrong: How he fell into drug use and gang culture as a youth; how, while spoiling for a fight with some mates after a cricket match, he took a single jab at a stranger named James that wound up killing the man; and how he found redemption and got his life on a new, better track. It’s a demanding journey, and Harrison meets it every step of the way.
Punch | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
The actor comes out swinging in a super-energetic opening monologue that situates the teenage Jacob in 2011, rough and unready for the pain he is about to inflict. “A fight’s coming tonight,” he promises on what will prove to be the fatal night. “Gonna be throwing some hands, tonight… And I can’t wait.” Harrison spends much of the first act narrating Jacob’s experience directly to the audience in sequences that double as confessions to his group-therapy circle; this device could easily prove static, but he sustains a sense of urgency throughout. And he’s thoroughly convincing as a Nottingham tough: His accent work is excellent, and his milky features can harden into menace when he’s fronting or soften into blankness when he’s troubled or confused.
Punch | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
“I’m just kind of hyper, you know,” Jacob tells us early on. “Itching for some—… some fucking…‘action’. ‘Drama’. We call it.” But is action the same as drama? Therein lies a challenge that Punch does not quite meet. The production has plenty of action: The cast of ten is continually changing costumes to play multiple characters—Lucy Taylor is particularly good as Jacob’s mother, his parole officer and others—and director Adam Penford keeps them scrambling as much as possible around the central double staircase of Anna Fleischle’s set; Robbie Butler’s lighting and Alexandra Faye Braithwaite’s sound and music work overtime to inject the staging with dynamism. But drama is harder to locate.
Punch | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
Murder is a plot; manslaughter is just an unfortunate event. So the play must look elsewhere for its story: to Jacob’s efforts to clear the toxic masculinity from his system, in part by forging an unlikely relationship with his victim’s grieving parents, Joan (Victoria Clark) and David (Sam Robards). In its first act, Punch cuts away from to show scenes of Joan and David as they deal with their son’s hospitalization and death; in the second act, the three characters converge, first through letters and then in person, guided by a charity worker named Nicola (Camila Canó-Flaviá, who also plays Jacob’s love interest).
Punch | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
The prolific Graham specializes in depicting recent history—his previous Broadway outings include the Rupert Murdoch pageant Ink and the musical Tammy Faye—and his depiction of Dunne’s case feels accurate. Graham is careful to include many contributing factors to Jacob’s delinquency: his combination of dyslexia, ADHD and autism; the faulty architecture of his housing estate; the prevalence of drugs; the pack loyalties of young men. A professor is even trotted out to lecture us about the plight of the post-industrial British working class. But while story itself is inspiring, some central emotional focus seems missing from the way it unfolds in Punch, which winds up feeling less like a full-blown play and more like a digressive PSA about the dangers of street fighting and the value of restorative justice. Harrison’s performance aside, the play’s blows are hit and miss: connecting here, grazing there but not quite landing a proper hit.
Punch. Samuel J. Friedman Theatre (Broadway). By James Graham. Directed by Adam Penford. With Will Harrison, Victoria Clark, Sam Robards, Lucy Taylor, Camila Canó-Flaviá, Piter Marek, Cody Kostro. Running time: 2hrs 30mins. One intermission.
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Punch | Photograph: Courtesy Matthew Murphy
