Luce at Southwark's Playhouse, review

Jc Lee’s knotty play, here receiving its British premiere, offers a perceptive take on the pressures that afflict parents, their offspring and the teachers who often mediate between them. It’s a smartly crafted 90 minutes, highlighting the evasive language of modern relationships and the delusions of adults who live vicariously through the teenagers they nurture.

Luce is a 17-year-old American high school student. Having escaped wartorn Congo, he’s been adopted by white liberals and has become a poster boy for multiculturalism. But when he’s asked to write an essay about an important historical figure, he produces a bizarre homage to a Seventies nationalist. This worries his teacher Harriet, and the discovery of illegal fireworks in his locker confirms her suspicion that he may be planning a terrorist attack.

As arguments swirl around his plans and motives, Luce’s psychology is intriguingly unclear. Is he an accident waiting to happen, an ice-cool provocateur, a role model enjoying a moment of rebellion or a misunderstood young man skewered by other people’s prejudice after being overloaded with their expectations?

Simon Dormandy’s absorbing production revels in this ambiguity. As Luce’s devoted mother Amy, Mel Giedroyc has an anxious intensity that will surprise fans of The Great British Bake Off.

Nigel Whitmey brings a nicely fidgety impatience to her husband Peter, Elizabeth Tan makes a fleeting yet unsettling appearance as Luce’s seemingly empty-headed ex Stephanie, and Natasha Gordon’s Harriet is a study in well-meaning frustration. But it’s Martins Imhangbe in the title role who impresses most — eloquent, unruffled and inscrutable.

Luce is on at Southwark Playhouse until April 2 (020 7407 0234)