The notices are in for Golden Boy, Clifford Odets’ 1937 boxing drama, revived by Sam Yates at the Almeida Theatre with Josh O’Connor back on stage after a decade on screen, playing Joe Bonaparte, the violinist who trades his instrument for the prize ring. The critics part company over the play rather than the playing. Most are warm, several very warm, and their praise gathers around O’Connor, Hayley Squires, Daniel Mays and a much-discussed Zubin Varla, and around Yates’s decision to build a live string quartet into Rosanna Vize’s set. Most of the dissent is about Odets himself: the Guardian and The Reviews Hub find the melodrama heavy going, and BroadwayWorld finds the evening short on heart for all the talent on show. Liam O’Dell is the exception, laying the blame on Yates’s staging rather than the script, and First Night Magazine — warm on almost everything else — lands the same reservation on Vize’s design.
The verdict: twenty-three reviews in so far: two five-star notices, one at four and a half, eleven at four, four at three and one at two, plus a paywalled Financial Times notice and reviews from British Theatre Guide, FringeReview and the Hackney Citizen that carry no rating. Across the nineteen that score it the average is 3.8 out of 5, and even the doubters single out Josh O’Connor and a strong supporting company.
What are critics saying about Golden Boy?
All That Dazzles
Reviewer: Daz Gale
“Time and time again, Almeida Theatre have proven what a reliable and consistent production house they are, with multiple transfers to the West End and New York in recent years, and no shortage of four and five stars for the majority of their productions a testament to their ability. Well, they have struck gold once again with Golden Boy. There are many reasons to love this pretty perfect production, with all of the cast and creative elements outstanding in their own right. However, it is the combination of Sam Yates’ direction and Josh O’Connor’s lead performance that make this not just pure theatre magic but pure gold. This is a production that packs a powerful punch, resulting in what is confidently a knockout hit.”
View from the Gods
Reviewer: Simon Jenner
“O’Connor and cast certainly provide a knockout – surely this has shot Odets into UK visibility in the way no revival has. Though it’s the pulled punches of the ending, how it’s played out, that haunts even longer. An outstanding revival of a playwright whose works should be far more visible.”
Plays To See
Reviewer: Tim Hochstrasser
“The performance by O’Connor is exceptional, and should be recognised as such by award ceremonies before the end of the year. Anyone who saw his breakthrough film role in God’s Own Country will be aware of his capacity for total immersion in the physical demands of a role. His slight frame and sensitive features make him a plausible violinist from the start, but what is astonishing here is his ability to transform himself into a fierce, even vicious fighting machine. Sharp, calculating intelligence and barely suppressed anger crackle through his scenes, helping to conceal some of the inconsistencies in the writing and creating a wholly plausible arc of character.”
The Independent
“Josh O’Connor is a standout in a lacerating takedown of capitalist greed”
Reviewer: Alice Saville
“There’s no shortage of mid-20th century writers laying into the American Dream, but Clifford Odets’s 1937 play effortlessly delivers the knockout punch. It’s a bluntly brilliant satire of capitalism and the way it destroys people who mess with it – chewing them up like drunks who’ve become heedlessly entangled in an escalator. A shirtless, blood-smeared Josh O’Connor is a standout in the Almeida Theatre’s new revival, taking on the title role of an ambitious young boxing star whose arrogance masks his vulnerability in the jaws of a machine he’ll never master.”
The Standard
“O’Connor and company are a knockout”
Reviewer: Nick Curtis
“Indeed, for a contemporary audience, the heightened dialogue and the sweat-and-whiskey fug of Golden Boy threaten constantly to slip into parody, but Yates and his cast hold it together with sheer conviction and good faith. O’Connor’s presence on the fight card means the Almeida run is pretty much sold out. Let’s hope it transfers. Because if you embrace it, this show is a knockout.”
Time Out
“Josh O’Connor returns to the stage in this ravishingly string-swept revival of Clifford Odets’ American tragedy”
Reviewer: Andrzej Lukowski
“A hit in its day, Golden Boy will probably only ever be revived fitfully because it was written smack bang in the middle of a period that yielded the greatest stage tragedies in American history… and it’s not quite one of them. But Yates’ string-drenched production makes a virtue of Odets’ symbolism, and a tip-top cast see it home. A historically important play, but this revival makes it feel thoroughly alive.”
LondonTheatre.co.uk
“Josh O'Connor's performance packs a punch in this lesser-known Clifford Odets play”
Reviewer: Olivia Rook
“O’Connor is joined by a stand-out supporting cast. Mays’s desperate and slippery Tom, full of empty promises, is happy to use people to get ahead — even his lover, the realistic Lorna Moon (played with strength by Hayley Squires, recently seen in the devastating All My Sons) who has learned to protect herself after a lifetime of disappointments. Zubin Varla is unsettling as the macabre puppet master Eddie Fuseli, who wants a stake in Joe and helps to shred his humanity. Meanwhile, Stanley Townsend’s kind Mr Bonaparte, Joe’s loving father, is the warm heart of this play.”
London Box Office
Reviewer: Stuart King
“Unusually for the Almeida, the production which is directed by Sam Yates, boasts a fully carpentered set by Rosanna Vize which fills the usual semi-circle void and obscures the renowned London-brick back wall — that is, until a section previously covered by white bi-fold shutters is opened to reveal a string quartet under the musical direction of Roman Lytwyniw. The musicians play accompanying pieces by Isobel Waller-Bridge, which imbue a stirring and emotional depth to key moments. A punchbag too is used to good effect in the design; swirling under a barrage of blows, the onboard video cameras (courtesy of Jack Phelan) live stream to the back wall in black and white.”
WhatsOnStage
Reviewer: Sarah Crompton
“They don’t write them like this anymore. Clifford Odets’ Golden Boy is a stirring, on-the-nose melodrama that feints and jabs its way to its message-heavy conclusion. You can see why it’s rarely performed. But in a production as good as this one by Sam Yates and with a forceful central performance by Josh O’Connor as Joe Bonaparte, violinist turned boxer in Depression-era America, it makes its case as a powerful, admonitory slice of theatre noir.”
Theatre and Tonic
Reviewer: Phil
“Yates’ artistry shines through in the bold, sometimes wonderfully absurd choices he makes. Cameras embedded within a punching bag capture Joe in the midst of a fight, projecting the footage onto the set in real time. It is a stroke of genius, allowing us to glimpse something of Joe’s inner turmoil while placing us directly inside the violence of the ring.”
Plays International
Reviewer: Neil Dowden
“O’Connor (Disclosure Day, The Crown) returns to the stage for the first time in 11 years to give a superbly committed performance as the embattled Joe. Sufficiently muscular to convince and increasingly bloodied as Joe’s bouts take their toll, O’Connor strongly conveys a sensitive awareness as well as the ambitious hardening of his behaviour, as his internal sparring plays out before us.”
First Night Magazine
“Striking revival pulls no punches back, and it’s a theatrical heavyweight”
Reviewer: Guillermo Nazara
“A hard-hitting play has been reborn on the London stage. To say the production punches above its weight would be unfair, especially given the quality of its elements. But I must stress what a pleasant surprise it is to watch theatre of this calibre, even if it hasn’t reached perfection. Piercing and haunting, Golden Boy has thrown its hat into the ring for the autumn season, and it seems like a worthy opponent to whatever comes next. Even if it’s against the rules, audiences are likely to get a kick out of it.”
The Guardian
“Josh O’Connor swings between hope and despair in boxing melodrama”
Reviewer: Chris Wiegand
“He is spurred on by a zealous manager, Tom, who even deploys his own lover, Lorna, to keep him satisfied. O’Connor transforms seamlessly as Bonaparte who hardens, bout by bout, with a resolve he deems fitting for the desperate 30s. His professional success and emotional spiral are observed by an anxious father, who irresistibly hymns music over money, and the ruthless gangster who has bought a stake in him.”
The Reviews Hub
Reviewer: Scott Matthewman
“And that’s ultimately what keeps Golden Boy from becoming a classic of the era. While its story has much to say, there’s nothing particularly original in its moral or the way it’s been retold. The excellent cast delivers a fine rendition of Odets’s play, but can’t disguise that it is no lasting classic of the era. This boxing drama doesn’t so much pull its punches as fail to land its killer blows.”
West End Best Friend
Reviewer: A.M.H.
“The live string quartet playing in and out of scenes adds another layer of depth and intensity. There is a delicious, sharp contrast between the peacefulness of the music and the brutality of the boxing, with the music becoming almost a ghost of the life Joe has given up. It reminds us of what is being lost even when Joe is convinced he is finally getting everything he wants.”
Liam O’Dell
“Boxing and violins collide in hit-and-miss revival”
Reviewer: Liam O’Dell
“Considering I could not connect with the first act, there is still something in Odets’ story about greed, capitalism and the destruction of the self (O’Connor’s Joe undergoes a radical transformation from a quiet individual to someone more brash by the end – yet another loud/quiet motif), so I feel more of the issues lie in Yates’ direction. For example, when things come to a head in the second act and multiple characters crowd the stage, you can’t help but feel as though you’re missing something wherever you look, and no indication is given – be it through James Farncombe’s lighting design or something else – around where we are supposed to look.”
BroadwayWorld
“No shirt for O'Connor as the boxer, but no heart either”
Reviewer: Gary Naylor
“But, despite all that talent on stage and a superstar draw on the playbill, the production fails to establish a place in our hearts, the care we need to feel for those lost in capitalism’s seductive grip just not breaching the fourth wall. Absent that, you’re just left with another bout of ear abuse on the Tube home and an enhanced admiration for Raging Bull, Rocky and Creed.”
British Theatre Guide
Reviewer: Vera Liber
“It is operatic, roles chiming like a piece of music. Director Sam Yates hasn't missed a trick. It could be a black and white movie (costumes are grey or black), which Jack Phelan’s projected films suggest. Isobel Waller-Bridge’s music compositions and Dan Balfour’s sound design get to the deep emotional heart of the play. A string quartet plays hidden behind wooden shutters, which are opened and closed to reveal Joe Bonaparte’s (Josh O’Connor doing screen acting in this dance of death) splintering heart, his love of the violin and his desire to make lots of money.”
FringeReview
“An outstanding revival of a playwright whose works should be far more visible”
Reviewer: Simon Jenner
“O’Connor here gives the performance of a shivering giant. One who’ll shiver apart. His raw aspiration, his holding back for the last of his talent, his colonising by first one then another manager, and the provocateur then potential saviour Lorna, all these visibly act on O’Connor: just as blow land on his body. Through the second half we see how his body’s a brutalised analogue to his mind.”
Hackney Citizen
“Josh O’Connor sweats through Odets’ Depression-era boxing drama”
Reviewer: Gabriel Wilding
“Yet we slug it out, from an explosion of screams to smashing silences, waste and lost potential spewing like the liberally applied blood coursing down O’Connor’s chest. Everyone is very serious, brows knitting, hands bludgeoning, but this depiction of early-20th-century masculinity and outsider status fails to floor us as it’s clearly aiming to do. Clearly more has changed in 89 years than first thought!”
Production photographs by Marc Brenner.
Also reviewed by: The Stage (Dave Fargnoli, four stars, “Josh O’Connor gives a knockout performance”), The Telegraph (Tristram Fane Saunders, four stars, “Josh O’Connor’s return to the stage in Golden Boy is a knockout”) and the Financial Times (“Golden Boy — Josh O’Connor delivers a calculated performance in Clifford Odets revival”, with no rating or byline visible), whose reviews sit behind paywalls.
For more critics’ verdicts on this autumn’s openings, browse our London theatre reviews.
Golden Boy runs at the Almeida Theatre until Saturday 31 October 2026, and reaches cinemas through National Theatre Live from Thursday 5 November 2026.
