A swaggering, swearing, hooded youth. One of the signature signs of broken Britain, and a popular character in plays hoping to reflect our country’s current malaise. Yet none I have ever seen has quite the vulnerability of Bayo Gbadamosi’s ‘Boy’ in Mad About the Boy, whose quick temper turns to salty tears by the end of this stunning piece of theatre.

Dialogue is thrown as quick as Gbadamosi’s jabs when he shadow boxers, left, right, left, right, right, left, as he is joined on stage by Jason Barnett as Dad, and Simon Darwen, as Man, a teacher at his school.

“Our generation toed the line,” says Dad. “My generation tested the line,” says Man. “My generation cross the line,” says Boy.

Writer Gbolahan Obisesan has a poet’s ear for language, metaphors mixing with idioms melting into homonyms. It is a joy to hear, and that is before we even delve into the darkness and moral ambiguities of what is actually being spoken.

Although speaking to each other, the trio always look directly towards the stalls in an innovative piece of staging by director Ria Parry, which thrusts the audience to the centre of the action and the words that we are being told, not listening to.

Boy is a problem case, a black child yearning to be a man. He sees being bad as being good and his father is sometimes unable to see his son’s obvious faults, of which there are many. Yet is this who he is or it youthful bravado?

Although it takes time, Boy’s facade does eventually crumble, and it is here that Gbadamosi earns his acting spurs in a terrificly powerful closing scene between father and son far from their broken home.

Mad About the Boy, developed and is supported by the National Theatre, was a winner of a Scotsman Fringe First Award when it premiered at the Edinburgh Festival 2011.

This exemplary production is only in Bristol for three days. Go and see it.

Mad About the Boy is at the Bristol Old Vic studio until Saturday. Click here for more information.