Who is the haunted child in Joe Penhall’s odd new drama? Is it young Thomas, who has been wetting the bed ever since the disappearance of his father, Douglas? Or is it Douglas himself, who returns one day, unkempt, filthy and disoriented?
Played in Jeremy Herrin’s production by a gaunt Ben Daniels, Douglas steals back into his family home to start burbling enthusiastically to worried wife Julie (Sophie Okonedo) about his shadowy ‘spiritual group’ (‘It’s not a cult!’).
Powered by two terrific performances from the leads and, on press night, a fine turn from child actor Jack Boulter as Thomas, the chief problem with ‘Haunted Child’ is its tone: Okonedo’s pragmatic, compassionate, slightly selfish Julie seems rooted in kitchen sink realism while Daniels’s otherworldly Douglas initially seems to have walked in from a religious satire, bagging laughs with descriptions of his group’s bizarre behaviour (‘we have devices… special hats’).
It’s only comparatively late that play seems to find its feet as an exploration of the fragility of identity, the impossibility of starting again and the damage an abdicating parent can inflict.
Douglas talks of replacing his disappointing old life with spiritual discipline and surrender to a higher power. But his mood shifts constantly: raffish, disorientated, nervy, lustful, aloof and violently angry, he can make no alternative persona stick.
‘Haunted Child’ is uneven. But in a below-par year for new writing here, it’s certainly one of the more intriguing things to have graced the Downstairs stage.