Breaking the Castle (Theatre Works and Sydney Opera House) - 85 minutes, with no interval

Drug addiction. If you can’t break the vicious cycle, there is a fair chance you will end up dead.

Peter Cook was one of the fortunate ones. He is still alive after the intervention of his best friend.

Rehab saw him get off the gear and he has written a compelling show about it.

But Peter isn’t the protagonist. Instead, it is an actor named David (played by Peter), who spends eight weeks in a luxury rehab facility in the mountains in Thailand.

The stint is paid for by his best mate, Frank, himself a reformed drug addict.

The piece starts with David returning to the site of his regular hits, Kings Cross, ready to score again, mixing with fellow druggies.

And then he is in rehab in Thailand, a fish out of water, at first unwilling to say anything in group therapy. He can’t even admit that he is an addict.

As he is prevailed upon by his counsellor to take the first step, his back story unravels.

He is addicted to crystal meth. His highs are super high. Chemical sex is on another plane. He is up for days on end. No sleep. And then the paranoia takes hold.

He was 14 when he first took drugs.

By now, he is really messed up. He needs his hits … daily. And it has been like that for a couple of years.

David’s home life was hardly ideal. He suffered from a series of traumas (not wanting to reveal too much, I will leave it at that – you’ll have to see the show to find out more).

It is only when he can begin processing these, that his journey to recovery can really start.

In the real world, his acting gigs are drying up. He is desperate to secure a job. He can’t even score a part as a cockroach in a Mortein ad.

He is down on himself. He is angry. He is self destructive.

Four weeks into his stint in rehab, he wants to leave. He says he is fixed. He is prevailed upon to stay … to do the work.

Time and again, he is asked to list things he likes about himself, but there are no words.

But, in time, as David puts it so eloquently, he tried dying and it didn’t work, so he might as well try living.

To do that, he must get back his “spirit”.

When he comes out the other end, he recognises he is one of the lucky ones.

Back home now, he heads to the Cross, where he runs into inveterate junkie Johnny. Johnny is out to score … again and invites David to do likewise.

David knows that Johnny’s fate and that of Johnny’s girlfriend is a lot more sombre.

The prose is unfiltered, raw, confronting. There are no beg pardons. Peter Cook plays all the characters in David’s life, adopting different accents in so doing.

The piece moves back and forth in time to reveal all.

It is a remarkable, insightful, confronting play that touches a raw nerve.

Nevertheless, lest you think it is all dour, far from it. There is warmth, humour and pathos readily injected into the work.

Throughout, as David, Peter is engaging, entertaining and assured. His delivery is polished, but natural. Everything feels authentic.

Peter has created something special, borne of personal experience, something that needs to be seen … widely, something that confronts the scourge of society.

The staging is deliberately messy, with a handful of props, as David snorts and stumbles. He grabs something here and takes something there. It has been brilliantly orchestrated.

With the aid of potent sound and lighting, we – the audience – are transported into David’s reality … into the reality of so many that are addicted.

A Q & A session with Peter follows the 85-minute offering. Nothing is off limits. He is an open book on how Breaking the Castle came to be.

And lest you think that conquering the demons has been straight forward, Peter acknowledges his journey has seen him relapse.

Expertly directed by Bridget Boyle, Breaking the Castle will next play at Sydney Opera House between 23^rd and 26^th July, 2025.