EXCLUSIVE: Olivier Award winner James Graham’s unmissable, must-see new play of the year, Punch, featuring an unbelievably stunning performance by David Shields as Jacob Dunne, will transfer from the Young Vic theatre into London’s West End in the fall, Deadline can reveal.
Punch, an extraordinary study of a young man who landed a fatal blow on James Hodgkinson, a trainee paramedic during an unprovoked attack, and the consequences thereafter, will become that rare instance of productions of the same play opening simultaneously in the West End and on Broadway.
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The drama, adapted from Dunne’s superb memoir Right from Wrong, originated last year at the Nottingham Playhouse in the East Midlands, the same district where the events in the play took place and where Graham was born and raised.
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Following its sold-out run at the Young Vic, it will move to the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue. from September 22-November 29.
My colleague Greg Evans revealed in March that a U.S. production of Punch will open the Manhattan Theatre Club’s 2025-26 season.
Director Adam Penford says the play’s sublime original cast led by Shields (Masters of the Air, The Crown), Alec Boaden (Masters of the Air), Julie Hesmondhalgh (Mr Bates vs. The Post Office, Broadchurch), Tony Hirst (Pistol, Hollyoaks), Shalisha James-Davis (Mary Queen of Scots, Crossfire) and Emma Pallant (All This Time, Queenie) will transfer to the Apollo.
However, the ensemble for MTC hasn’t yet been cast, and “we’re sort of talking and exploring all options,” though Penford is adamant that the play “will remain firmly set in Nottingham. We are not relocating the action to America, so it will need people who can do those British accents.”
Penford notes that the strong Nottingham accents will be toned down for Broadway “because my experience with that is that Americans can’t really understand it, and it’d be interesting to see whether we end up with Brits over there or Americans or a hybrid.”
Punch is an exploration of male violence. The blow at the center of it all takes place during a wild Saturday night on the town where Jacob is looking for a fight. Some have likened it to the Netflix drama Adolescence, but that’s actually wide off the mark.
The incident under the microscope in Punch takes place in 2011, at a time, says Penford, when the internet wasn’t as omnipresent as it is now. And also, Jacob’s rage wasn’t fueled by anything online; it was drink, drugs and the environment of a notorious housing estate.
The reason the play performed to totally packed houses in Nottingham and at the Young Vic is because of Jacob’s honesty in telling it in the first place, and the redemptive powers of forgiveness.
The victim’s parents, through what’s known as restorative justice, see that Jacob’s struggling when he’s released from incarceration and offer him hope and a helping hand. It’s remarkable how Graham captures the painful heartache and refreshing joy at the core of this play. I saw every demographic — children, all age groups and races — at the Young Vic, and I pray that’s replicated in the W.End.
The actress and filmmaker Kristin Scott Thomas and casting director Lucy Bevan both were seated closeby when I saw Punch. Both joined in the rapturous standing ovation.
Scott Thomas doesn’t always jump to her feet at the theatre. We Brits think it’s an over-the-top American habit. So when we stand, we mean it.
I reckon the last time I heard such a roar of approval for a new play was when Mark Rylance appeared in Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem at the Royal Court Theatre.
Kate Pakenham, who produced Punch through KPPL Productions — which she runs with Phyllida Lloyd (Donmar Shakespeare Trilogy, Mamma Mia!) — with Mark Gordon Pictures, and Eilene Davidson, observes: “It’s almost like it meets a thirst that audiences have or need. Audiences have to hear a story of redemption and hope based on this true story and a tragedy that turns into something that offers us hope.”
Pakenham says that Punch “is a very human, real story that offers us so many lessons about who we can be to each other,” which is the exact same thought I had in my head after I saw Punch. It’s meaningful that the production is dedicated to the memory of James Hodgkinson and that members of the UK Parliament are involved in helping to ensure that the play reaches a wider audience.
Acts of genuine kindness are so rare. Or maybe we journalists just don’t report enough of it in newspapers and on TV.
KPPL Productions is a theatre and film company with social justice storytelling at its heart. They co-produced the National Theatre’s production of Grenfell: In the Words of Survivors by Gillian Slovo at St Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn.
The backstory to Punch is that in 2020, during the pandemic, Penford heard Dunne on a BBC Radio Four podcast and decided to track him down.
Penford explained to Dunne that James Graham would be the perfect dramatist to adapt it. “What I eventually did is, I knew James Graham was coming up to the Playhouse one weekend, and I said, ‘Well, why don’t you just meet Jacob in person, no strings attached? You don’t have to commit to writing the play.’” But I sort of knew that when he met Jacob in person and Jacob told him his story, that would hook James in, and that’s what happened.”
Punch is likely to go on a UK tour in 2027, says Penford, so that it reaches all the people who can’t afford to travel to the West End. Along with KPPL Productions, Mark Gordon Pictures and Eileen Davidson Productions, the transfer id also being presented in association with the Young Vic, and Nica Burns the powerhouse chief executive of Nimax Theatres.
Graham’s also represented by his play Dear England, which recently returned to the National Theatre in an updated version directed by Rupert Goold.
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