‘In finance, man makes his own miracles.’
Jazz, Broadway and the Great Depression. In 1930s New York City, international financier Gregor Antonescu’s luck has finally run out. As news of a catastrophic business deal ripples across the world, he flees to the apartment of his estranged son Basil.
There, Gregor will need all of his ruthlessness and ingenuity to save his reputation and keep his empire from collapse. But will he risk using his only son as a pawn in one last power play?
A sharp and gripping tale of paternity and corruption, Terence Rattigan’s play Man and Boy was first performed in London in 1963. This edition was published alongside a revival at the National Theatre, London, in 2026. It features Rattigan’s final version of the play, with an authoritative introduction by Rattigan scholar Dan Rebellato and an afterword by Anthony Lau, director of the revival.
‘Remarkable… an extraordinary couple of hours of theatre… shockingly dark’
— Time Out
‘Eerily relevant… darkly comic power play… a still-potent provocation’
— Telegraph
‘An explosive story about the corruptions of capitalism with present-day echoes of Jeffrey Epstein’
— Guardian
‘Thrillingly monstrous… miles away from the clipped tones and class-bound stiffness associated (however wrongly) with Rattigan’
— London Standard
‘A surprisingly hard-edged play, upsetting in its subject matter and fierce in its execution… feels pressingly pertinent… has a savagery and sharpness that make it utterly compelling… The clarity of Rattigan’s writing still sounds like a clarion call’
— WhatsOnStage
‘Thrilling… wealth, power, dirty deals and sexual exploitation: this rarely revived drama by Terence Rattigan certainly strikes a nerve right now… the play leaps along in exuberantly grotesque fashion… both pertinent and darkly entertaining’
— The Stage
‘Visceral and astutely written’
— Broadway World
