He was the boy who nearly made it. So now Martin lives in the shadow of what he could have been – a millionaire, uber-famous film star. In 1999, at the age of 10, he came down to the last two for the role of Harry Potter, but fell at the last hurdle.
The rest is history and his competitor Daniel Radcliffe (or, as Martin likes to call him - He Who Should Not Be Named) went on to become a household name. But, Barney Norris’s adaptation of David Foenkinos’s best-selling novel from 2023 gives us a fictionalised story of the real person who suffered the near-miss. Martin is haunted by his lost potential, the trauma of the Hollywood audition process and the star that is everywhere.
There is a dash of irony thatAsa Butterfield – who plays Martin – is selling-out Riverside Studios’ hefty main space on his stage debut. Unlike Martin, Butterfield has been an actor since his childhood; he was the leading role in both The Boy in Striped Pyjamas and Hugo and gathered an even bigger following after playing Otis in the Netflix hit, Sex Education. You’d be fair to think that the association with childhood screen success might make Butterfield slightly odd casting for Martin - but he gives a totally assured and searing performance. And besides, he apparently lost the role of Spider-Man to Tom Holland.
He is the nucleus of Michael Longhurst’s barebones production, which begins with Butterfield frantically thinking back to where things ‘started’ to go wrong. We meet Martin in the hospital where his wife is having her 12-week scan; he’s about to become a father, but all he wants is his life to slow down.
For the first time in years, the memories of his almost Harry Potter days have come flooding back. Voices of producers, his parents and the script itself slice his psyche like a poisoned butter knife. He relives the horrors of the audition process - he was asked to cry on demand and was always met with ‘smiling faces’ - but also his parents’ divorce, his father’s death which coincided with 9/11 and the release of the first HP film. Throughout his youth, Martin is jeered at for simply not being Potter and the ripple effect of trauma is stark.
Butterfield makes Martin look like he’s been eaten alive by these recollections. In one scene he quite literally climbs the walls of the theatre to lie in a hospital bed that hangs sky high - the health and safety of this is questionable at the very least. Things finish a little bit too neatly with Norris’ reflections on how fame restricts freedom feeling trite. The character of Martin’s dedicated partner Sophie needs filling out. But for Butterfield this is a triumph. An actor with less talent would have been exposed by Longhurst’s demanding direction -Butterfield is simply magic.
