Clifford Odets' Depression-era drama of a violinist who chooses boxing for the money returns to the Almeida with Josh O'Connor in the lead.
Josh O’Connor, an Emmy and Golden Globe winner for The Crown and Challengers, leads Clifford Odets’s Golden Boy at the Almeida Theatre in Islington. The run opens on Tuesday 8 September 2026 and ends on Saturday 31 October.
Odets wrote the play for the Group Theatre in 1937. Its hero is an Italian-American boy from a poor immigrant family who can play the violin or box, but not both. Boxing will break the hands music needs, and he chooses the money.
Odets had written for the Group’s left politics for years. In this play the argument moved from a strike to what a person does when the honest option pays nothing.
The play made his name. Not long after, he went to Hollywood, the same choice the play examines, and he wrote it knowing that.
The Group Theatre lasted a decade and produced Elia Kazan, Harold Clurman and Lee Strasberg. The acting method that came out of them shaped the American stage and screen.
Sam Yates, an Olivier Award winner, directs. A live string quartet plays on stage the music Joe Bonaparte gives up for the ring.