Joe Locke, the rising star of stage and screen, most recently seen in the MCU’s Agatha All Along with Kathryn Hahn, is to make his West End debut in September 2025.
Locke will team up with fellow recent MCU recruit, Ruaridh Mollica in the UK premiere of Clarkston, a play by Samuel D Hunter.
The production will open in previews on 17th September, and will run until 22nd November, at The Trafalgar Theatre on Whitehall, in London’s West End.
This is not however Locke’s first foray onto the stage. He appeared in the role of Noah in the near-future dystopian climate-fiction play The Trials at The Donmar Warehouse in London’s Covent Garden in 2023, a performance for which he won the WhatsOnStage Best Professional Debut Award. In January 2024 he made his Broadway debut in the camp-horror Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
As well as his breakthrough role as Wiccan/Billy Maximoff/William Kaplan in the highly discussed and critically acclaimed Agatha All Along, the 21 year old Manx actor shot to public attention thanks to his leading role as Charlie Spring in Netflix’s chart-topping and Emmy Award nominated LGBTQ+ teen drama series, Heartstopper. Having appeared in three seasons of the show, Locke is currently filming a concluding movie, for future release on the streaming platform.
In Clarkston, Locke plays the role of Jake, working the night-shift in a branch of wholesaler Costco, alongside Chris, played by Mollica. Rounding out the cast is Sophie Melville.
Mollica is himself about to join the MCU, having recently completed filming on the project known either as Vision, or VisionQuest. As ever with MCU projects, Marvel is keeping tight-lipped about exactly who Mollica is portraying, with the official word being that he has been cast in the role of Tucker. Fans have speculated that he may be playing Tommy Maximoff, aka Speed. If this is the case, then the producers of Clarkston will have managed to achieve something of a coup, casting both Maximoff brothers in a West End stage production.
The play itself is a modern western. Jake has traveled from the east coast of the United States, on a journey to try to discover who he is. Circumstances revealed during the play have forced him to stop short of his intended destination at the Pacific Ocean, and he is keeping himself afloat financially stacking shelves in the eponymous town’s branch of the multi-national wholesaler.
Both Jake and Chris are hiding. As their friendship develops, so does their sense of adventure. Can they allow themselves to embody the dream of a new life, in the manner of American Frontier explorers who came before them, including Lewis and Clark, the latter of whom the location of Clarkston is named for?
Clarkston will be having an extremely limited run of a little over nine weeks at the Trafalgar Theatre. Tickets go on sale from 10am on Tuesday 22nd September, with ticket prices currently listed as ranging from £25 to £150, plus booking fees, depending upon the day and time of the show being booked. Joe Locke will not appear in the performance on Saturday 1st November.
Tickets can be purchased here: https://trafalgartheatre.com/shows/clarkston/
