Heartstopper Star to West Ended In Clarkston

The heartstopper star Jo Locke is to make his West Ended Debut in this autumn, in a drama, who bonding while working in a warehouse in a rural American city.

Locke is currently filming the upcoming heartstopper film after appearing in three series of hit Netflix shows, which are about two classmates who fall in love, but will play the role of their new platform at the end of this year.

The 21 -year -old will act in Clarkston, who follows two men from the opposite end of the US in his twenty -nine ends who meet while working in costco.

Locke told BBC News that he was “very excited” for his West and Debut, saying that his new role matches his will of “flawed characters … who has a bit of bite”.

Clarkeston is written by Samuel De Hunter, who is most known for his 2012 play the whale, Who later won Brendon Fraser an Oscar When made in a film.

The manufacturers have not yet announced the site or run dates for British production, but told the BBC that it would open in the West End Theater in the autumn.

Set in Clarkston, Washington, the drama opens with a costco employee, named Chris Working Night Shift, when he meets the new Higher Jake, who was originally a young gay person of Connecticut.

Jake has a Huntington disease, a degenerative neurological condition that causes involuntary movements. He ended in Clarkston after an accident after he was not able to drive himself during a road trip.

“He is a boy of this city at a small place,” Locke explained. “Jake found a lot of layers for him which are actually revealed in the play. Many subjects are with different experiences of classes and characters.”

Meanwhile, Chris struggles with a stressful relationship with his mother, which is a drug addict.

Locke, who is used to portray young men struggling with his identity, explained: “I really enjoy the characters who have something for them, a little biting, a bit of a gray field.

“Everyone is flawed in some ways. And I have been lucky enough to play some defective characters in my career so far, and Jake is no different from it.

Hunter said that the play is “fundamentally about friendship and plateonic male love, something that I think we do not see much on stage and screen”.

Locke agreed: “Yes, there is a scene of my favorite things about this drama where these characters almost construct on their plateonic relations and reach a romantic level, and they realize or not, not, plateonic relations are important which is important, and I think it is really beautiful.”

Clarkston, which was previously performed with another dramas of Hunter, Leviston received a positive review from critics when staged in the US.

“You feel that you are considering the intense personal moments of those you do not always like, but come deeply,” Hollywood reporter’s Frank Skek said Of production of 2018.

“Finally, there is an encounter between Chris and his mother that is shattered as a scene and a scene as you will ever see on stage. But the play ends on a sweet, optimistic note that sends you smiling from the theater.”

Write about a separate production in 2024, Charles McNakal of La Times said: “Clarkston indicated that some of our most educative relationships may be the most fleeting. It is one of the beautiful discoveries in the game of small, absorbed and eventually uplift.”

Anyone who has worked in the night shift may be related to the idea that there are early hours when people often open for each other and have deep conversations.

Hunter suggests that such an atmosphere results in “more delicate, more intimate” backgrounds as a result of such an atmosphere.

“I had an experience working in a Walmart when I was a teenager,” he recalled, “and I found that places like the brake room were so intimate and weak, you are in this very fruitless place, so I think I think the need for human connection is made more.”

Hunter was the idea of ​​writing a play on going to his home town Moscow Idaho, about 30 miles from Clarkson, and “became interested in the idea that the American West is still young”, After purchasing louisiana In the early 19th century.

“The markers of that history are still,” Hunter said, “but they are right with costcos and gas stations and things like mini-malls.

“So it is only interested in using the American West and colonial past, and what does it mean in 2025.”

The new production will be directed by Jack Serio, who first directed another plays of Hunter, Granzville, with Rooridh Molika and Sophie Melville cast in the other two lead roles as Chris and his mother.

Lokes have previously appeared on stage at Donmar Warehouse in London and in Broadway production of Sweeni Tod.

The actor said that being a theater actor, it was “what I wanted more than anything”.

“I am from the Isle of Man,” he explained, “and my birthday was present every year, my mother was a trip to London to watch some shows, so this is a very full cycle to bring my mother to my mother in my West and Debut, it’s going to be very exciting.”

Locke has acted in three sessions of Nephelix’s Heartstopper since the launch in 2022. The show after two teenage boys, Charlie and Nick, who fall to each other in secondary school, and their friends’ circles. Locke, while talking to BBC News on the set, shot the film adaptation.

“It’s going very well, we are now about two -thirds of the roads through shooting, and everything, touch wood, is running well,” he said.

“We are spending a great time in doing it, this is a very good closing chapter of the story.”