The Fifth Step
Soho Place Theatre (@sohoplace)
- Opens: Friday, 9 May 2025 -
Booking until: Friday, 25 July 2025
The Fifth Step description
The Fifth Step stars the BAFTA Scotland and Olivier Award winner Jack Lowden and Emmy and BAFTA award winner Martin Freeman. Billed as a powerful new play, it handles themes like masculinity, alcoholism and faith in a drama so compelling you'll be turning it over in your mind for a long time afterwards.
The story
In this new play about the pursuit of sobriety, playwright David Ireland takes us to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting where James, who is an AA veteran, agrees to become newcomer Luka's sponsor. Step 1 is all about honesty. Step 2 deals with faith and Step 3 explores surrender. Step 4, self-examination, goes swimmingly as the men begin to build a fragile friendship. Then Step 5, confession, arrives and it soon becomes clear that James and Luka don't just share experiences. They both have dark and dangerous secrets. Will Luka reveal the things that could lead him back to alcohol, and will James reveal the truths that threaten the trust their mutual recovery depends on?
Having already thrilled audiences in Glasgow, Dundee and at the 2024 Edinburgh Festival, the show's West End transfer is well deserved.
The talent behind the magic
Jack Lowden reprises his role as Luka, a BAFTA Scotland and Olivier Award winning actor known for his work in Slow Horses on Apple TV. He won his Olivier award in 2013 for Richard Eyre's adaptation of Ibsen's Ghosts and has appeared in the movies Dunkirk, Calibre, and Mary Queen Of Scots. Martin Freeman is an Emmy and BAFTA award winner with hits like Fargo, Sherlock, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit, and The Office under his belt. He won a 2011 TV BAFTA for his role as Dr John Watson in the BBC series Sherlock.
Written by David Ireland, the action is Directed by Finn den Hertog with Set and Costume Design by Milla Clarke, Lighting Design by Lizzie Powell, Sound Design by Mark Melville, Movement by Jenny Ogilvie and Casting by Stuart Burt CDG. The Fifth Step is produced by Neal Street Productions, Playful Productions and National Theatre of Scotland in association with Nica Burns.
Starring:
Jack Lowden, Martin Freeman
