Review: ENGLAND AND SON, Tron Theatre

Having enjoyed major success at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Ed Edward's play England and Son has embarked on a UK tour. Starring Mark Thomas, this is the first play he has performed in that he hasn't written himself (and he remarks, it is annoyingly the one he's had the best reviews for).

The setup for the tour show is slightly different as they have written a 25-minute introduction and then added an interval before the 60-minute play. The intro is from the perspective of someone working with addicts in recovery and offers their stories with their own voices.

The main play features a promising young lad whose surname is England. Brought up in a working-class family, he idolises his ex-military father who tells him stories of life in the army. The narrative jumps back and forth from childhood to the present day. In his teens, the boy meets the woman who was his social worker when he was little- he doesn't even remember having one. His life is chaotic and disjointed and he ends up using drugs and incarcerated. 

Edward's play is written from the perspective of his lived experience in prison and these scenes are particularly effective. Thomas' pacing doesn't drop for a single second of this play and flits between lows and highs throughout. 

England and Son is a harrowing story that has been sensitively written and wonderfully performed.

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