The Olive Boy at Southwark Playhouse Borough – A Raw and Poignant Theatre Experience

I went into The Olive Boy at Southwark Playhouse, Borough, feeling nervous but genuinely curious. I hadn’t read much beforehand and didn’t really know what I was walking into. In hindsight, I’m glad I went in blind, but I also didn’t expect to walk out of the theatre with tears still rolling down my face, feeling emotionally shaken and completely unguarded.

This isn’t a show that eases you in gently. It meets you where you are, whether you’re ready or not.

Funny, Cheeky, and Disarmingly Honest

Ollie Maddigan’s performance starts genuinely funny. He captures that cheeky, awkward bravado of a fifteen-year-old boy brilliantly, full of confidence on the surface, clearly uncomfortable underneath. There’s humour, teenage posturing, and moments that make you laugh before you realise why.

Early on, what struck me most was seeing how a fifteen-year-old navigates life in a new place so soon after his mum’s death, trying to make friends, trying to belong, trying to act “normal.” It felt painfully real. The humour comes first, but beneath it all is a young person clearly struggling to stay afloat.

It’s a stark reminder that young people grieve too, often without the language to explain what they’re feeling. They react, they retreat, they lash out not because they’re difficult, but because they don’t yet know how to cope with the weight of loss they’re carrying.

Therapy That Doesn’t Tie Things Up Neatly

Throughout the show, Ollie attends therapy sessions voiced by Ronni Ancona. These moments feel deliberately distant, almost clinical, and I found myself unsure whether they were helping him at all.

That uncertainty felt intentional. Ollie talks, but it’s never clear whether he’s being fully heard or whether he even knows how to articulate what he’s feeling yet. The sessions don’t offer comfort or resolution; they simply exist alongside the pain. It reflects something very real: therapy isn’t a magic fix, especially for a child trying to process grief using adult tools they aren’t ready for.

Minimal Staging, Quiet Power

The staging is deliberately sparse. At the centre of the space sits a single green chair, with no distractions and nowhere to hide. That minimalism allows the performance to do the work and makes every emotional shift feel sharper.

Lighting is used subtly to signal disruption and change moments where Ollie’s world tilts or fractures slightly. It never overwhelms the performance, but it quietly mirrors the internal chaos beneath the surface.

Family home videos appear at the beginning of the show, but at that point, they don’t land with the same weight. They feel almost incidental just part of the background. It’s only at the end, when they return, that they become devastating. Familiar voices. Ordinary moments. A life that existed before everything changed. Seeing them again reframes everything that came before.

When the Weight Fully Lands

As the show builds, the losses stack up, not just the death of his mum, but the loss of his childhood home, his sense of safety, and eventually his stepdad too. It’s only close to the end that the line “you look like your mum” is spoken, and by then, it lands like a final blow.

That moment carries so much: memory, resemblance, grief, guilt, and the unbearable reminder of who’s missing. It’s quiet, but it’s crushing.

By the time the show ended, I was overwhelmed. I know there was a Q&A afterwards, and normally I would stay, but this time I couldn’t. I just needed to leave. I needed space to breathe and sit with what had surfaced.

A Show That Stays With You

I lost my mum, and losing a parent is one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through. People teach you so many things in life, but they don’t teach you how to live without your parents. You hear “your mum wouldn’t want you to feel like this,” and I know that’s meant kindly, but what people don’t talk about is the guilt. The weight. The way grief doesn’t follow rules or timelines.

The Olive Boy doesn’t try to fix that feeling. It doesn’t tidy it up or offer answers. It simply acknowledges it, and that’s what makes it so powerful.

This is a raw, honest, deeply human piece of theatre. I completely understand why it has received the recognition it has. It’s not loud or showy, it’s truthful.

If you go and see it, bring tissues. Not because it’s dramatic, but because it might meet you somewhere tender.

This is a show to watch.

And one to feel.

showing at Southwark Playhouse until 31 January 2026 BOOK