The stage at the Trafalgar Theatre has been transformed into a Costco warehouse. Metal racks stacked with giant tubs of crisps and treats and glowing televisions stretch across the space, while an audience bank sits opposite, faces lit in the same harsh fluorescent glow as the actors. It is here, amid the endless jars of pretzels and cheese balls, that two young men come together. The setting is plainly ordinary, yet Samuel D. Hunter’s play searches for tenderness inside its fluorescent corridors.

Jake, played by Joe Locke, arrives in this town with an uneasy energy that hides something heavier. A recent university graduate from Connecticut, he has abandoned both his studies and his boyfriend, carrying with him the fresh knowledge of a Huntington’s diagnosis. Locke’s West End debut is not the star vehicle his name on the posters might suggest. His Jake is self-conscious, brittle, sometimes funny, but the performance does not always dig deep enough into fear and longing. There are flashes of youthful vulnerability, yet too often the words feel spoken rather than lived.

Opposite him is Chris, the Costco worker who trains him on the night shift. Ruaridh Mollica plays the part with held-back energy. His Chris stands stiff, shoulders drawn, every movement guarded, until the armour inevitably cracks. The performance builds gradually, until the pressure of poverty, closeted desire and exhaustion tips him over. Mollica makes the collapse feel both expected and devastating. In the pauses and silences he lets us sense the weight Chris cannot put into words.

The play introduces a third presence in Sophie Melville’s Trisha, Chris’s mother. She arrives with the energy of someone torn between love and destruction. Addicted, volatile, yet still clinging to her son, she is drawn in brief but sharp strokes. Melville brings honesty to every moment, though the script gives her little room to grow. She becomes a shadow around Chris more than a character with her own path.

Jack Serio’s direction often mirrors the play’s stillness. He keeps the actors moving between boxes and shelves, but the pace slows, and the choice to place audience members on stage creates closeness for some while distracting the rest of the house. The minimalism of Milla Clarke’s design is true to the warehouse setting yet does little to spark the imagination.

There are moments when the production opens up. Stacey Derosier’s lighting changes the world at key points, pulling the actors from industrial gloom into sudden washes of warm sepia or piercing yellow that turn the drab set into landscapes of memory. In one sequence, the suggestion of a coastline is created not with scenery but with the widening of eyes and a flood of light. These touches hint at a poetry that the text itself often avoids.

Performance, more than writing or staging, carries Clarkston. Locke may not dig as deeply as the role asks, but his awkward humour and youthful vulnerability connect with the audience. Melville makes a strong impression with her short but fierce scenes. And Mollica gives the production its heart. He does not simply hold the play together, he shows why it deserves to be staged. His Chris feels more than an outline of a struggling young man. He becomes a picture of quiet pain mixed with small hope, and it is impossible not to care for him.

By the end, Jake rests his head on Chris’s lap, a small act of closeness inside a world that otherwise offers only distance. The moment lingers, but it cannot fully disguise the flaws that come before. Clarkston wants to reach depth but often stays on the surface.

Still, there is much here to value. For audiences drawn by Locke’s debut or those curious about Hunter’s quieter dramas, the play offers vulnerability, intimacy, and one remarkable performance that raises everything around it. Clarkston stands not as a triumph but as a tender, imperfect evening that holds on to its humanity.

Clarkston runs at the Trafalgar Theatre until 22 November 2025.

Tickets available at: www.trafalgartheatre.com

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