“All My Sons” – National Theatre Live – Review by Andrea Carnevali

All My Sons” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) and Marianne Jean-Baptiste (Hard Truths) feature in a five-star, triumphantly acclaimed new production of Arthur Miller’s classic play

OK, I know I’m cheating a bit. This is not really a “movie”, but since this production is showing at the Chiswick Cinema in May and June (seven shows as far as I can see), that’s my excuse to talk about it here. Because, as you might have guessed, I really liked it and I’m craving to share it with somebody.

There are some plays that you admire… and then there are those that grab you by the throat so much so that during the interval you turn to the complete stranger sitting next to you just to silently confirm: “This is great, isn’t it?”.

That happened to me at the end of Act One of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. I looked to my left, met the eyes of the woman sitting next to me and, without even really knowing each other, we both shook our heads in agreement and said: “Wow…”.

Arthur Miller’s play, first performed in 1947, is in many ways the blueprint for the modern American family drama. On the surface it starts, innocently enough with a family gathering in their back garden on a sunny afternoon. The patriarch, Joe Keller (Bryan Cranston…. more about him later) has rebuilt his life and business after the war; his wife (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) still obsessively hoping that their missing son Larry may somehow still be alive, while the younger son wants to move forward with his future and marry Larry’s former fiancée.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Richard Hansell, and Bryan Cranston in All My Sons; Photograph Jan Versweyveld

Right from the very beginning, you can feel a strange tension simmering beneath the polite conversations, as if everybody is  avoiding some terrible truth sitting in the middle of the garden with them. And slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, Miller tightens the screws: secrets emerge, old wounds reopen and what initially felt like a domestic drama becomes a devastating moral reckoning about guilt, responsibility, capitalism, family loyalty and the lies people tell themselves in order to survive.

The incredible thing is how contemporary this still feels. Replace wartime manufacturing with any modern corporate scandal and the play suddenly stops feeling like a period piece altogether.

The production itself, wisely, doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel with gimmicks or flashy concepts. It trusts the writing and, crucially, the actors. And what performances these are!

Leading the cast is Bryan Cranston. Yes, we’ve always known from Breaking Bad that he is a phenomenal actor, but seeing him live, in the flesh, is a completely different ball game. On screen you can admire the craft; on stage you can actually feel the emotional gears turning in real time.

There’s something almost terrifying about watching an actor hold an entire theatre in complete silence with just a look or the slightest hesitation before a line. Cranston’s performance is not flashy or theatrical in the obvious sense: it’s deeply human, layered and painfully believable.

Bryan Cranston and Marianne Jean-Baptiste; image NT Live

The entire cast operates at an astonishing emotional level throughout, but what struck me the most was not just the intensity of the confrontations, but the stamina required to sustain them night after night.

I genuinely remember leaving the theatre, after seeing the tears on the faces of those actors and wondering: how on earth are they able to keep that level of emotional energy for every single performance? There are scenes here that feel less “acted” and more excavated from somewhere painfully real.

Particular mention also has to go to Paapa Essiedu — yes, the controversial upcoming Severus Snape in the new Harry Potter adaptation. If anyone still has doubts about that casting, they should watch this. His stage presence is magnetic: intelligent, vulnerable and explosive when needed. In fact, after seeing him here, I honestly cannot wait to see what he’ll do with Snape.

And that’s probably the best compliment I can give this production overall: it reminded me why live theatre can sometimes hit harder than cinema. There’s no cutaway, no second take, no safety net. Just actors standing in front of an audience, carrying impossible emotional weight in real time.

By the final moments, the atmosphere in the theatre had become almost suffocating. You could feel people barely breathing.

So yes, if you missed it on stage, this is honestly a wonderful chance to catch it at your best local cinema. And if you already know the play, don’t worry: the power of the performances and the sheer emotional intensity of the piece survive the transition to the big screen beautifully (In fact, you will definitely be able to see those tears I mentioned before)

A powerful, gripping and deeply human production of one of the great American plays. Don’t miss it!

Andrea Carnevali is a Bafta winning film maker who lives in Chiswick, and a co-creator of the Chiswick In Film festival.