Naturalism doesn't have to be a synonym for unadventurous; if a play is naturalistic in the way Gary Owen's
Violence and Son is, it can play out in the way life, rather than dramatic convention does, leaving it incredibly unpredictable. Six months ago Liam's (David Moorst) mother died of cancer, and ever since the teenager has been living with his father in a remote part of Wales. But when he moved there that was the first time he ever met Rick (Jason Hughes,) who'd abandoned Liam's mother before his son was born. They're very different: Rick didn't get the nickname "Violence" for nothing, and claims to have last been completely sober when he was 14; Liam is clever, timid and a
Doctor Who geek - when we first meet him he's just come back from a sci-fi convention dressed as the Eleventh Doctor (appropriately enough in the same theatre where Matt Smith first astonishingly coup'd his théâtre.) So the father/son relationship is spiky, but they're getting on with things.
