Book The Fifth Step Tickets for a Fearless New Play at @sohoplace

Secure your The Fifth Step tickets now for a daring new psychological drama from David Ireland, the award-winning playwright behind Ulster American and Cyprus Avenue. Starring Martin Freeman (The Responder, Sherlock, The Office) and Jack Lowden (Slow Horses, Mary Queen of Scots), this London premiere opens 17 May 2025 at @sohoplace, London’s most innovative in-the-round theatre. Directed with intimacy and intensity by Finn den Hertog, this is theatre at its most raw, unsettling—and subversively funny.

A Late-Night Encounter with No Easy Answers

The Fifth Step presents two strangers locked in conversation—one offering a confession, the other quietly listening. But as the layers of identity, truth and motive are peeled back, the audience is pulled into a slow-burning power game laced with tension, absurdity, and sudden reversals. With echoes of Beckett, Pinter, and McDonagh, David Ireland’s script invites us to question who deserves forgiveness—and who decides.

Structured around the concept of the fifth step in addiction recovery—making amends for past wrongs—the play probes the limits of accountability, belief, and remorse. It’s intimate, unsettling, and provocatively funny, all within a two-hander that strips performance down to its essentials.

An Electric Pairing: Martin Freeman and Jack Lowden

Stage and screen star Martin Freeman returns to the theatre to take on one of the most layered roles of his career. Known for portraying emotionally complex, morally grey characters, Freeman brings quiet menace and compelling vulnerability to the stage. Sharing the space is Jack Lowden, one of the UK’s most acclaimed young actors, praised for his physical presence and intellectual rigour.

Together, they form a combustible pairing—two men, one conversation, and an ever-shifting sense of danger. It’s a rare opportunity to see two of Britain’s finest actors up close, in a production where the stakes are high and every silence speaks volumes.

Directed In-the-Round by Finn den Hertog

Finn den Hertog, whose direction has earned acclaim for its emotional precision and cinematic clarity, stages The Fifth Step in the round—placing the audience in immediate proximity to the action. The intimacy of @sohoplace allows for a level of immersion rarely seen in the West End. Every facial expression, every hesitation, and every shift in power is magnified by the closeness of the space.

Under den Hertog’s direction, the play becomes not only a conversation between two men, but a silent confrontation between audience and speaker—what are we willing to hear, and at what cost?

Book Tickets for The Fifth Step today

The Fifth Step continues David Ireland’s tradition of tackling moral grey areas with wit, sharp dialogue, and a refusal to simplify. This is theatre that entertains while it unsettles, balancing drama and dry humour with unsettling questions about justice, performance, and guilt.