Punch Broadway review: ‘Every performance feels truthful and free of theatrical posing’
Punch is a play about a fatal one-punch incident, based on the true story of Jacob Dunne and his victim's parents: "The production itself looks sharp and alive"
Punch, written by two-time Olivier Award winner James Graham and directed by Adam Penford, is inspired by Jacob Dunne’s memoir Right From Wrong.
The play follows Dunne’s story from violence to redemption after a fatal mistake, killing James Hodgkinson in 2011, changes his life forever.
Based on a true story, Punch is running on Broadway at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre, with performances currently scheduled through October 2025.
Punch begins with a single, irreversible moment. Jacob Dunne throws one punch that kills James Hodgkinson, a young man whose night should have ended with friends and laughter, not tragedy. The act devastates two families, sends Jacob to prison, and leaves him to confront what he has done. After his release, Jacob seems hollowed out, searching for purpose until he’s contacted by Joan and David, the parents of James, played with depth and grace by Victoria Clark and Sam Robards.
Through restorative justice, they exchange letters for two years before finally meeting face to face. Their act of forgiveness doesn’t excuse Jacob’s crime, but it changes all of them. What could have remained an unhealed wound becomes the start of a fragile peace.
Clark is extraordinary as Joan, her stillness carrying enormous emotional weight. Robards brings quiet understanding to David, a man trying to live beside unbearable grief. Together they embody the unshowy heroism of ordinary people choosing compassion over anger.
“The ensemble keeps the storytelling fluid”
Will Harrison gives a breakthrough performance as Jacob, full of restless energy and uneasy sincerity. He captures both the fury of youth and the paralysis of remorse. Yet for all his power, playwright James Graham stops short of exploring how far that single punch rippled outward. We glimpse the damage but rarely live inside it. A fuller portrait of the people around Jacob could have made this story hit even harder. The ensemble keeps the storytelling fluid, though the prison scenes never quite find the danger or claustrophobia the moment demands.
Lucy Taylor is magnetic as Jacob’s mum, her scenes aching with disappointment and love. She also plays Wendy, his probation officer, switching roles so quickly that her first character sometimes evaporates before we’re ready to let her go. She’s an actor worth giving more room to.
The production itself looks sharp and alive. The scenic and costume design by Anna Fleischle and lighting by Robbie Butler lend the stage a restless, modern pulse. Under a director who clearly trusts the material and his cast, every performance feels truthful and free of theatrical posing. These people behave like real people, not actors underlining emotion, which is the surest sign of thoughtful direction.
“It leaves you thinking about the limits of empathy and the quiet bravery of those who choose it anyway”
The most wrenching scene comes when we learn James is dying in the hospital. David cannot stay by his son’s bedside, while Joan keeps vigil long into the night after life support is withdrawn. It’s an image of endurance and unconditional love that lingers long after the lights fade. Punch is a meditation on forgiveness, not a tidy moral. It leaves you thinking about the limits of empathy and the quiet bravery of those who choose it anyway.
I only wish the script had gone deeper into the lives left behind. One punch may have ended a life, but it also fractured many others. A play this honest deserves to show us all of them.
Tickets are available now on the official Punch The Play website.