·       The Fifth Step (NT Live)

• 4/11/26 (Sat)

A National Theatre Live film of a two-man stage show of 2025. The title refers to Alcoholic Anonymous’ 12 steps toward recovery.

A nervous young Scottish man works with his older mentor at AA to overcome his addiction to drink. They are going through the 12 steps, approaching the fifth, which demands admitting your flaws to someone as well as yourself. He claims to be incel (involuntarily celibate, i.e., can’t get laid – they need a word for this?). He is generally obsessive, claiming to masturbate dozens of times per day and fixated over women. His calmer mentor appears to have his life under control: married, children, no drink in decades. The young man expresses envy, comparing marriage memorably to “pussy on tap”. (The mentor assures him that it’s not that easy.)

The young man seeks solace in religion, but the more skeptical mentor says that you can find God anywhere if that’s what you want to believe, even in a paper cup. At one point, the young man is hallucinating that his mentor is a rabbit. As their relationship evolves, the mentor becomes more controlling. When the young man develops a relationship with a woman, the mentor warns him that he is just exchanging one fixation for another and says he must wait until he is cured before venturing into romance. The young man is understandably peeved since it was the mentor who was encouraging him to find spiritual comfort in the first place. It then emerges that the woman who the young man is sleeping with might be the mentor’s wife. The men’s relationship begins to change as we discover that the mentor has not been entirely honest with the man – or himself.

The dialogue is realistic and engaging. A fight scene between the men was well played, with the release of tensions signaling a new status between them. The lovely ending reminded me of the frogs in Magnolia: a paper cup drops from the sky, which the young man senses is a sign from God – but the mentor with no beliefs doesn’t see it.

The play is an interesting exploration of our need for something to believe in and hold on to. It also examines the nature of relationships amid the shifting connection between the two people. It questions our faith in higher-ups like priests and mentors as well as in God.

Jack Lowden was stellar as the twitchy, anxious young man, and Martin Freeman (who I saw on stage years ago in Tokyo in an adaptation of a Japanese comedy) was superb as always as the man who gradually falls apart in front of us. The chemistry between the two was palpable. The small-scale show is played in the round in a tiny theater with just a table and chairs that are shifted from time to time to give all surrounding sides their due. Director Finn Den Hertog keeps things moving swiftly. The filming must have been a nightmare without a single perspective to hang on to, but they did an excellent job of capturing the action. Another great contribution by NT Live.