Asa Butterfield Will Make His Stage Debut in One-Man Comedy Play, SECOND BEST

Asa Butterfield, star of Netflix’s Sex Education will make his stage debut in the one-man play, Second Best – a fictional story about the boy who came second to play Harry Potter. Written by Barney Norris, based on David Foenkinos’ best-selling novel and directed by Michael Longhurst Second Best opens at Riverside Studios next year where it plays a limited four-week run from 24 January - 22 February 2025. 

At ten years old, Martin Hill was on the brink of stardom, down to the final two contenders for the role of Harry Potter but narrowly missing out. Now an adult, Martin is about to embark on the ultimate adventure – fatherhood. As he navigates this whirlwind of emotions, he is pulled back to that pivotal moment in his past as he struggled to move beyond imagining what his life might have been. 

Second Best is a playful yet poignant new comedy about fate, near-misses and the winding paths life takes. It explores the ache of almost touching greatness and the humour and hope that come when dreams remain just out of reach. 

Asa Butterfield says of his first on stage role: “It’s equal parts hilarious and heartbreaking, a universal tale of ‘what ifs’, and I can’t wait to bring it to life on stage for the very first time.”

Producer, Simon Friend, continues: “I read David Foenkinos’ wonderful novel when it was published last year, and it immediately cried out to be told on stage. It’s a coming-of-age story of success and failure, love and loss, and fathers and sons – as well as the universal experience of plans going awry. We’re incredibly excited about the incomparable Asa Butterfield making his stage debut in Barney Norris’ wonderfully funny and moving adaptation of the novel, with Michael Longhurst directing. A team of artists who are most definitely not second best.”

British actor, Asa Butterfield, is arguably best known for his role as Otis Milburn, in the Netflix worldwide phenomenon Sex Education. The series returned for a fourth and final series last September. He will next star in Out Of The Dust for Netflix, a six-part psychological thriller, opposite Molly Windsor, and Christopher Eccleston. 

Asa made his on-screen debut at the age of eight in After Thomas (2006). In 2007, he featured in Son of Rambow alongside Will Poulter. The following year Asa starred in the film adaptation of John Bayne’s novel by the same name, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. A leading role that earned him critical acclaim and a nomination for a British Independent Film Award for Most Promising Newcomer. In 2011, he starred in Martin Scorsese’s adventure film Hugo and in 2015 in James Graham’s, A Brilliant Young Mind. 

Asa led in the festive film, Your Christmas or Mine? for Amazon Prime, released at the end of 2022. A sequel followed in 2023, titled Your Christmas or Mine 2. 

Asa’s further film and TV credits also include: Choose or Die (2022), Greed (2019), Watch the Skies (2019), Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018), Time Freak (2018), Then Came You (2018), Wrong Place Right Tim (SHORT) (2018), Thunderbirds Are Go  (2017), The House of Tomorrow  (2017), Journey’s End (2017), The Space Between Us (2017), Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children (2016), 10,000 Saints (2015), Enders Game (2013), The Wolfman (2010), Nanny McPhee Returns (2010), Merlin (2008) and Ashes To Ashes (2008). 

Michael Longhurst is an award-winning stage director and former Artistic Director of The Donmar Warehouse, where he directed, amongst others, Keeley Hawes in The Human Body by Lucy Kirkwood, Next to Normal (four Olivier Award nominations; also West End), The Band’s Visit (six Olivier Award nominations), Rory Kinnear in Force Majeure, Teenage Dick, Belleville starring James Norton, and the Olivier Award-winning multi-cast revival of Nick Payne’s Constellations (originally Royal Court, West End and Broadway). His programming included the globally transferring pandemic sound installation Blindness, a new version of The Cherry Orchard by Benedict Andrews (starring Nina Hoss and Adeel Akhtar) and Macbeth starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo, also transferring to the West End this autumn.

His Chichester production of Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s civil rights-era musical Caroline, or Change, starring Sharon D Clarke in an Olivier Award-winning performance, transferred to the West End and Broadway where it was Tony-nominated for Best Musical Revival.

Other productions include The National Theatre smash hit Amadeus (Olivier Theatre, featuring The Southbank Sinfonia), The Son and Bad Jews (West End), Carmen Disruption (Almeida), A Number (Young Vic), ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore and The Winter’s Tale (Sam Wanamaker) and Between Riverside and Crazy (currently at Hampstead Theatre). 

Barney Norris’s work has received awards from the International Theatre Institute, the Critics’ Circle, the Evening Standard, the Society of Authors, and the South Bank Sky Arts Times Breakthrough Awards, among others, and been translated into nine languages. His plays include Visitors, Eventide, Nightfall, The Wellspring and acclaimed adaptations of Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day and Lorca’s Blood Wedding; his novels include the acclaimed Undercurrent and the bestselling Five Rivers Met On A Wooded Plain.

Set and Costume Design will be by Fly Davis.

Second Best is produced by Simon Friend Entertainment.

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