Heartstopper Star Joe Locke Shines in West End Debut With Clarkston

Netflix star Joe Locke, best known for his breakout role in the hit teen drama Heartstopper, has made an impressive West End debut in Clarkston, Samuel D. Hunter’s poignant play about friendship, loss and the search for meaning in modern America.

Opening at the Trafalgar Theatre, the production marks a bold programming choice: staging an intimate work by a relatively little-known American writer, whose best-known credit remains The Whale, adapted into the Oscar-winning 2022 film starring Brendan Fraser.

A New Generation Drawn to Theatre

At just 22, Locke already commands a devoted Gen Z following, and his casting is expected to attract younger audiences who might otherwise bypass traditional theatre. As Jake, a young man grappling with both Huntington’s disease and small-town prejudice, Locke delivers a performance critics are calling both funny and touching.

With his wide-eyed gaze and fragile physicality, intensified by spasms that chart his character’s decline, Locke embodies a haunting vulnerability. His chemistry with co-star Ruaridh Mollica is central to the piece. Mollica plays Chris, a weary local burdened by the monotony of working in a Costco store, his mother’s addiction (played with ferocious energy by Sophie Melville), and the frustrations of life in Clarkston, Washington.

A Story of Lost Horizons

Hunter’s script explores themes of connection, trust and the longing for possibility in a world shrunk by consumerism. Jake arrives from Connecticut with lofty academic ideals and a quixotic mission to retrace the steps of his ancestor, explorer William Clark. His story collides with Chris’s working-class reality, producing both friction and tenderness.

Though there is an early kiss between the two men, the heart of Clarkston lies not in romance but in companionship: a yearning for someone to share the weight of existence. One especially moving moment sees the pair curled up together, listening to excerpts from Clark’s diaries, evoking an era when horizons felt boundless.

Direction and Staging

Directed by Jack Serio, the staging balances Hunter’s lyrical flourishes with a straightforward realism. While some passages veer toward schematic efficiency, the production’s emotional depth and Locke’s magnetic debut ensure the play resonates.

A Limited Run

Clarkston runs at the Trafalgar Theatre, London, until November 22. For Locke, the role represents not only a successful step into live performance but also the possibility of converting a generation raised on streaming screens into theatregoers.

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