Grud review – Sliding floors as the two worlds of teenagers collide

IIt’s a familiar encounter between parents and teenagers. One rants and curses through a dodgy account of the day’s activities; the other listens with measured concern as he cleans up the cracked Pringles boxes and cans. But in this scenario, a chaotic father tests the patience of his daughter, who has seen and heard it all before.

Sarah Powers emotionally acute drama shows how one role reversal is the impact of alcoholism on a family. Another is the way 17-year-old Bo tries to shield her difficult home life from her father, Grud, and keep it a secret from her new friendship with Aicha at their sixth-form college.

Noemi Daboczi’s two-tiered set allows one room to flow into the other: the family’s unkempt lounge is connected by a ramp to an orderly classroom. Bo is repeatedly seen packing away elements of both lives, but she’s ultimately unable to compartmentalize them: One spills into the other when Grud’s spilled beer spills into the lecture hall, and later scenes from both begin to overlap. It’s an engaging concept, even if the moments of crossover between these two separate worlds—and the introduction of a third, escapist space—are never as disorienting as they could be in this carefully timed production from Jaz Woodcock-Stewart, whose Paradise Now! showed a gift for the eccentric.

Power’s play is measured in awkward hugs, hard silences, and silly jokes whose laughter often turns to sadness. Grud is a nickname from a children’s play, and father and daughter continue to play quirky routines that are as touching in their authenticity as Bo’s jokes with Aicha. The girls warm to each other, despite initial caution, and bond over the project of building a model satellite, which they begin to care for like children, extending the play’s theme of care across the generations.

This friendship is as delicately drawn as Grud and Bo’s, though both stories would benefit from a stronger arc and more richly detailed social background. But this three-man film succeeds as a character study, with uniformly strong performances. In her professional debut, Catherine Ashdown uses a controlled gaze and restrained body language to capture Bo’s isolation and quest for equilibrium, while Karl Theobald balances erraticism, desperation and flashes of intense violence as Grud. We could learn more about Aicha, but Kadiesha Belgrave’s stormy comedy and charisma in the role bode well for the sitcom she’s developing with BBC Studios.