Review: James Graham's Punch, a Much-Needed Dose of Hope in a Broken World

It was an uneventful Saturday night, until it wasn’t. Twenty-eight-year-old trainee paramedic James Hodgkinson was at a pub with his dad and mates after watching a cricket match. Nineteen-year-old Jacob Dunne had spent the day with his own pals, drinking and drugging and looking for a scuffle. When their paths crossed, Jacob slugged James, unprovoked. James hit the ground hard. Nine days later, he was dead, and Jacob found himself in police custody.

That’s merely the prologue to James Graham’s brokenhearted new drama Punch, receiving its American premiere on Broadway at Manhattan Theatre Club’s Friedman Theatre. What follows will shock anyone used to seeing the world through a merely black-and-white lens. Jacob found a path to rehabilitation. James’s mother, Joan, found the strength to forgive the young man for throwing the unexpectedly fatal punch. They begin campaigning together against violence. Goodness growing from inconceivable awfulness. Can you imagine?

Graham didn’t have to: the events in Punch are true, adapted from the real Jacob Dunne’s memoir Right From Wrong. He’s merely the facilitator for a story that provides hope in what is for many of us a time that’s completely devoid of it. You won’t just need one tissue; you’ll need the whole box.

In Act 1, Jacob (Will Harrison, tremendous) pulls us straight into his world, a low-income Nottingham housing project called the Meadows. Jacob would rather be out carousing and making trouble with his gang of friends than sitting at home with Mum and Nan. He tells us this much directly—the first act unfolds in direct address, underscored by Alexandra Faye Braithwaite’s thumping remixes, Robbie Butler’s clubby lighting, and Leanne Pinder’s relentless choreography. Anna Fleischle’s set, a brutalist half-pipe staircase, is an anarchist’s playground, everyone running up and down, the cycle playing out over and over.

Sensory overload develops very quickly: Graham and director Adam Penford do a fascinating job of theatrically approximating the vibe of what might be going on inside Jacob’s head. Things slow down when Jacob receives his sentence: three years, for which he only serves half. James’s parents, Joan (Victoria Clark, devastatingly stoic) and David (Sam Robards, wearing his heart on his sleeve), are perturbed by the leniency, to say the least, but they eventually get involved with a program of restorative justice, wherein a moderator helps them contact the perpetrator to have some of their questions answered. Thus, an unlikely relationship is born.

It leads to a luminous climax, arguably the most beautifully written single scene of the year. Jacob, Joan, David, and moderator Nicola (Camila Canó-Flaviá) sit in a simple half-circle, on hard plastic chairs, and speak plainly about their feelings. The moment is so complicated, fraught, and courageous, performed with simplicity and precision, and written with a frankly unheard-of level of grace.

The restlessness of the first act feels taxing to watch (imagine living it), but without it, this quiet confrontation, where three people gather the strength to rebuild their lives after a tragic mistake inextricably bound them, wouldn’t land with such emotional force. Harrison’s performance is the nucleus, brimming with toxic energy that eventually dissipates as he becomes the self he never knew. He gorgeously embodies how it’s possible to stop the cycles of destruction if you’re given the right kind of support.

That, ultimately, is Graham’s larger point. Punch isn’t just about one tragic night in the East Midlands, but about the systemic failures that make such nights happen. When Jacob is released from prison, he isn’t rehabilitated; he’s homeless, unemployed, and still adrift, with no real tools for building a new life. If he didn’t have the restorative justice program, he could just as easily fall back into the old routine. This issue isn’t confined to the United Kingdom, either; the same kind of pipeline runs with just as brutal efficiency here in America.

Punch ends on an upbeat note, one that some may find saccharine. But the optimism signals that Jacob’s hard work of transformation paid off. As a siren call for change and empathy, Graham leaves us uplifted, while mindful that such endings are all too rare in the real world. But they don’t have to be.