Review: One Punch at HOME is ‘a raw and unflinching look at violence and regret’

The true story of a night out gone seriously awry One Punch acts as a morality tale on anger management, violence and the dangers of toxic masculinity.

The play opens with a trio of paramedics acting as a Greek chorus on what would have been an average twenty something birthday for Reece, a father of one with a loving partner and two doting parents.

One Punch at HOME

We join him opening cards, dropping off his daughter with his mum and dad, getting the bus to work and ultimately embarking on a birthday pub crawl that ends in tragedy.

Switching between characters the three strong cast of Ellis Basford, Camille Hainswroth-Staples and George Reid offer a convincing window into contemporary life of a Hull family, managing distinct personas for their creations that avoid bleeding into one another.

We see the never-ending anxieties and cares of parenting a grown-up son, the workaday back and forths of a couple with a young child and the tensions of an adult friendship that has lasted a lifetime.

The pared-back set acting as the perfect backdrop for a story that, despite being artfully rooted in its setting thanks to the Yorkshire-based credentials of most of the cast and writers, could have taken place anywhere.

If anything, the depiction of smoking area arguments, clubs filled with afterwork revellers and binge drinking can prove too close to the bone for veterans of UK market town nightlife.

However, the slow-motion choreography of the club scene was superb, and while the Dr Seuss-style narration and dialogue was cloying at times it provides a welcome counterbalance to the poignancy of the story.

The John Godber Company

The John Godber Company, the production company behind the play, displays here its characteristic mix of social realism, northern charm and light-touch humour bringing it to a serious, issue-led narrative.

There are genuine laughs in the first half that go some way to alleviating the sickening anxiety and fruitless hope that the inevitable won’t happen, while the conclusion stays the right side of emotive without cheapening the subject matter with mawkish sentimentality.

One criticism would be that references to NHS underfunding at the start muddy the waters and are in danger of overburdening the central message. However the core point shines through, its impact deepened by the knowledge that it is based not only on the real-life experience of a devastated family but something that happens repeatedly all over the UK and ultimately the world.

Tickets for One Punch at HOME MCR

One Punch is on at HOME MCR Wednesday Feb 12th – Saturday Feb 15th.

You can get tickets here