“Second Best” at Riverside Studios

Franco Milazzo in West London
5 February 2025

It’s a remarkably quick turnaround from page to stage for Second Best. It is based on a popular novel by award-winning French author David Foenkinos, which was first published in France in 2022 with the English translation the following year. Now Barney Norris’s adaptation is premiered at Riverside Studios, directed by Michael Longhurst.

Asa Butterfield as Martin Hill.
Photo credit: Hugo Glendinning.

The story follows Martin Hill, a ten-year-old boy who comes heartbreakingly close to securing the film role of Harry Potter. Having, rather surprisingly, reached the final two in casting, he is ultimately passed over in favour of the actor he refers to as “he who shall not be named”. This rejection, which profoundly impacted his younger years, resurfaces as Hill now faces a life-changing moment: impending fatherhood.

Asa Butterfield stars in this one-man play which opens in a Paris hospital. Hill and his partner Sophie are attending their first baby scan and, as he contemplates the enormity of the changes and challenges ahead of him as a new father, memories of his childhood and past disappointments come flooding back. The narrative zigzags between past and present with Hill recounting his journey to adulthood, the people who shaped him and the lingering impact of being second best. His story is one of loss, failure, and self-doubt but also of resilience. The play successfully explores how a single event can shape one’s identity and one’s fate.

This marks Butterfield’s stage debut, though he is already an accomplished screen actor. He first gained recognition as a child in The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008) before appearing in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo and working alongside Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley in Ender’s Game. These days, he is best known for playing schoolboy Otis in the Netflix series Sex Education alongside Ncuti Gatwa.

In Second Best, Butterfield effortlessly shifts between his adult self and his childhood persona, capturing Hill’s vulnerability, self-doubt, and survival instincts. His performance is engaging – not through grand gestures, but through quiet, honest storytelling. Despite tackling some tough subjects, such as mental illness, death, and emotional abuse, the play avoids melodrama. Instead we see a portrayal of one man’s internal struggle. Through Butterfield’s thoughtful performance, we glimpse the other significant figures in his life. The audience is drawn in as he reveals more and remains captivated throughout.

The set, designed by Fly Davis, is deceptively simple yet striking. A stark white box spans the width of the stage, serving as a blank canvas on which Hill’s memories can unfold. Though minimal in design, the set transforms into various locations in time and place. The hospital bed protruding from a height on one of the side walls, which looks slightly bonkers, alludes to Hill’s precarious mental state at certain points in the play. A supermarket display of crisps feels random but serves an important narrative purpose.

The film camera and TV monitor get used intermittently to add a layer of visual storytelling. The screen’s small size may limit visibility for some audience members sitting further away from the stage, but it doesn’t impact the narrative negatively. The large art crate at the back of the stage is inventive. It serves a useful purpose to shift the space and bring us some delightful visual elements of the different places Hill depicts in the story. These elements, though sparse, are highly effective in supporting the story.

Paule Constable’s lighting design complements the production’s aesthetic and enhances the emotional shifts with precision. Timed precisely, colour changes underscore key moments. A shadow effect during a scene depicting Hill’s mental health struggles is particularly striking and highlights the feeling of being, perhaps, a shadow of oneself. Similarly, Richard Hammarton’s sound design, as well as video, serve the narrative, never overwhelming the storytelling but instead enhancing it. The technical aspects of this production are woven together as tightly as its script.

Despite the sometimes tough subject matter, Second Best finds moments of humour and tenderness. At its heart, this is a story about the human experience and everything that entails with a reminder that life is about what you do rather than what you don’t. And, in the end, love reveals itself in the small and ordinary gestures of those closest to us.