King James, Hampstead Theatre review - UK premiere drains a three-pointer

Cleveland is probably the American city most like the one in which I grew up. Early into the icy embrace of post-industrialisation, not really on the way to anywhere, but not a destination either and obsessed with popular music and sports, it's very Scouse. Okay, the Mersey did not catch fire as the Cuyahoga River did in 1969, but it would not have surprised anyone in Liverpool had it done so.

So it’s almost inevitable that Matt (Sam Mitchell) and Shawn (Enyi Okoronkwo) (pictured below) are like the lads with whom I grew up – okay, they’re like me, I’ll admit it. They bond over their NBA team, the Cavaliers, bicker over the minutiae of ranking their sport’s best players and, especially, deal with the near-necessity of moving away to seek one’s fortune. But they always come back to the absurdity that is wrapped up in fandom, identity and history. 

Matt is white, whiny and a worrier, middle class and, when first we meet him in his early 20s, stalled with an inchoate sense that his life should be bigger than it is. He can’t even find the wherewithal to rebel properly against his parents' well-meaning support and channels his efforts into dubious business ventures and obsessing over the Cavs and their decades-long quest for The Championship. Just when superstar player, LeBron James, is revealing his near limitless potential on the court, he has to sell his pair of season tickets to pay off a debt.

Shawn is black, working class and confident, a kid who’s going places. He pitches up at the bar in which Matt works and makes an offer for the tix, but Matt wants more – no bother, Shawn pins him for a mark (street smarts you see) and soon gets the price he wants. But, like Derek and Lamont in American History X, the two hit it off, develop a mutual respect and find their lives changing as a result.

Rajiv Joseph’s play sits perfectly Downstairs at Hampstead Theatre, its director, Alice Hamilton, using the physical intimacy of the space to explore the psychological intimacy of the relationship that develops in parallel with the long career of LeBron ‘King’ James himself. Delivered in a snappy 100 minutes including an interval, it’s almost as notable for what it does not include as much for what it does.

Not only are drugs absent from these two young men’s lives, so too women (largely), and childhood trauma or much in the way of money worries. Reminding me a little of Bob and Terry in The Likely Lads, you wonder what keeps you interested in these somewhat nondescript lives.  

Theatre’s alchemical magic is largely found in the writing and the acting, and both prove slam dunks in this fascinating character study. Joseph’s dialogue is beautifully crafted, changing subtly over the timeframe, continually illustrating with its rhythms, vocabulary and warmth the tensions and the compensations that keep Matt and Shawn together. And it’s the choice of a particular word that leads to the rift we all knew was coming, a word I was surprised to hear Matt use, but scrambled minds do scrambled things.

Both actors are super, finding a lovely chemistry without ever venturing into sentiment. As the power shifts back and forth between them, neither can resist jabbing at an open wound, but both know when they’ve done wrong and both have the humility to (eventually) bridge the gaps that have been opened up. IRL cannot sustain a feud the way social media can. There’s an edge too in that Shawn never understands how much pain it must cause Matt whenever he speaks of Matt’s parents, who clearly would have preferred him to be their son. Maybe that’s his place – at least in Matt’s damaged psyche, and explains that clumsy langauge that drove a wedge between them.

King James is too sweet natured a play to be great, but it’s very good in its understated ambition, unusual in its refusal to import any hot button issues into a story that stands on its own two feet. Debuting in Europe after its 2002 premiere in the USA, perhaps LeBron’s own extraordinary coda to his storied career can inspire a sequel. I’d certainly be interested to find out whatever happened to these likely lads.

• King James Downstairs at Hampstead Theatre until 4 January
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