Last Updated on September 28, 2025
New to the West End, Punch is incredibly impactful.
4.5 out of 5.0 starsBased on the autobiographical memoir Right from Wrong by Jacob Dunne, Punch is a new play by the acclaimed playwright James Graham. It was commissioned by the Artistic Director of Nottingham Playhouse, Adam Penford, after Penford heard the story of how, in 2011 in Nottingham, a teenager (Dunne) threw a punch that resulted in the unintended death of a young man, James Hodgkinson. Punch is dedicated to James, and all victims of one-punch, a term for legal cases where a single punch has unforeseen fatal consequences and the perpetrator is convicted of manslaughter.
Directed by Penford, Punch originally premiered at Nottingham Playhouse in May 2024 and was then staged at The Young Vic in March of this year, before its current transfer to the West End at the Apollo Theatre.
The play opens with Jacob, played by David Shields, at a support group for ex-offenders. As Jacob tells his story, the other five members of the cast step into the roles of the people Jacob talks about. The actors switch between different characters as the narrative jumps back and forward in time, playing schoolchildren, club-goers, authority figures, friends and family members. Emma Pallant stood out for her excellent physicality and seamless transition from playing a lad on a night out to David’s mother and later to David’s probation officer. She often moved between these last two roles with little pause in between, simply by the removal of a jumper and the addition of a hair-tie.
The set is minimal but powerful, with a concrete semi-circular pedestrian overpass above an underpass to signify the council estate, the Meadows, where Jacob grew up with his single mother and brother. We learn how, as a teenager with autism, ADHD and dyslexia, Jacob would get in trouble at school before leaving with no GCSEs. Hanging out with others on the Meadows, he likes to spend nights clubbing, drinking and doing drugs. The pacing is frenetic, mirroring the chaos in Jacob’s life. The movement direction by Leanne Pinder and the lighting design by Robbie Butler skilfully help us understand how Jacob was an aimless and impulsive teenager seeking the thrill of a rush on a night out.
Jacob is nineteen when a single violent action by him causes a chain of events that changes his life… and ends his victim’s. Out celebrating his mate’s birthday, Jacob meets a girl, Claire, with whom he has instant chemistry. He takes her number and goes off to find his friends, who are involved in a fight outside a pub. Jacob enters the fray, throwing just one punch and hitting James, who was visiting Nottingham with his dad and brother to watch a match. As James falls to the ground and hits his head on the pavement, becoming unconscious, Jacob legs it.
We see Jacob’s panic, mixed with some relief, as he hears that the man he hit had woken up before being taken to the hospital. We then see the reactions of James’s mother and father, Joan and David Hodgkinson, played by Julie Hesmondhalgh and Tony Hirst, as one or both learn first how James is in hospital, yet seems like he might be alright, and later how he has a brain haemorrhage. Nine days after James was taken to the hospital, Joan and David agreed to James’s life support being turned off.
With James dead, the police close in on Jacob. At first, he is charged with murder. However, this is later reduced to manslaughter, after the evidence proved that it was James hitting his head on the pavement that crucially caused him brain damage, rather than the direct impact of the punch. Jacob, shocked by the unintended consequences of what he thought was simply a bog-standard punch at a bog-standard pub fight, pleads guilty. He receives a fourteen-month sentence in a Young Offender Institution. When he comes out, Jacob isn’t allowed to live at home with his mum, and he tries but fails at first to avoid his old crowd from the Meadows. Meanwhile, Joan and David struggle to come to terms with their son’s death and his killer getting such a short sentence. When they are offered the chance by a restorative justice programme to get answers to their questions from Jacob, they decide it’s the only thing that will help them move forward.
Despite the tale of violence in the first act, it is the second act that really hits the audience emotionally, as Joan and David first have indirect contact with Jacob, and then ultimately meet him in person. The pace is much slower as Jacob processes and reflects on what has happened. This is where Shields’s acting prowess comes to the fore, as he shows Jacob’s realisation of the effect of his punch on others and his determination to make his life count.
There are some beautifully nuanced and poignant scenes between Jacob, Joan and David. Joan’s compassion is a driving force as she wants, like her son did, to present “the best possible version” of herself that she can. The language in the three characters’ conversations is simple, as they carefully choose their words, but the subtext of these talks is deep and complicated.
Jacob moves forward with, surprisingly, support and encouragement from Joan and David. He gets an education and starts a serious relationship. At Joan’s instigation, David works with her to raise awareness about the potential dangers of young men throwing ‘just’ one punch in a fight. Upon becoming a father to a son himself, Jacob has one remaining question for Joan and David: whether they can ever fully forgive him.
Punch delivers what most theatre sets out to do but doesn’t always achieve: a collective experience that makes you think, feel and discuss. As James Graham is quoted as saying on a poster in the foyer in dedication to James Hodgkinson: “theatre can and should be a restorative space of empathy and increased understanding”.
Punch runs at the Apollo Theatre from 26th September until 29th November 2025.
Book tickets here
Apollo Theatre
Shaftesbury Avenue
London,
W1D 7EZ
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