Review: Jab (Park Theatre)

Review by Sam Waite

⭐️⭐️⭐️

It’s now been half a decade since “precedented times” became a fond, fanciful idea. In the Spring of 2020, for any who have managed to forget, the mysterious virus around which fears had been mounting for some months caused a stay-at-home order for all non-essential workers. Lives and relationships were thrown into turmoil, with some people forced to adapt on the fly to new working conditions, while others simply couldn’t work at all. Both transitional states are at the centre of Jab, playing at the Park Theatre after a critically successful 2024 run at the Finborough Theatre.

Credited as being inspired by true events, Jab follows married Gen X couple Anne and Don, an NHS worker and a vintage store owner-operator. While he is forced to shutter his business and depend on government grants to avoid closing down entirely, she now has to do her administrative work from home – that is, until she is drafted to frontline work in testing and vaccination centres. After nearly three decades together, the cracks are beginning to show all too clearly in their relationship, and the pair’s vastly different responses to the initial vaccine rollouts could prove to be what puts an end to them, one way or another.

Director Scott Le Crass returns to the Park Theatre after the soaring success of Rose, the acclaimed one-person play which would go on to play an acclaimed West End run. Le Crass adeptly handles Jab’s balance of slice-of-life and period-drama sensibilities, keeping a firm pace over the 75-or-so minutes without making Don and Anne’s homelife feel needlessly rushed. Another Park return comes in the form of Time & Tide playwright James McDermott, who injects believability and almost uncomfortable realism into some of the dialogue. “Give over,” Don barks at any criticism, short o (o-va, not oh-ver) and requisite gruffness firmly in place. The pair throw increasingly less affectionate barbs at one another throughout, utterly genuine as a couple falling fast out of love.

Where the script is less adept is in keeping the audience engaged in the growing discourse between the characters, and their emotional journey’s throughout the middle third of the show. I do understand the praise mounted on the show’s first run, but McDermott’s work has the joint habit of both over-working and under-utilising moments of genuine tension. The repetition of topics and of dialogue feels entirely purposeful – we see Anne and Don trapped together for months of end, after all – but it still felt at times like a missed opportunity to develop other discourses. McDermott has such a solid command of authentically human dialogue, but grandiose topics around abuse and mistreatment within the marriage may have benefitted from more time to fester before our eyes. The writing itself is strong, but it can be difficult to stay engaged with the storytelling in the more stagnant moments, particularly as the announcements of death tolls begin to feel more shoehorned.

Any stiltedness is quickly decimated by the stellar performances, from Liam Tobin and the final Park returnee, Leaves of Glass’s Kacey Ainsworth. There’s a natural chemistry between the actors, which makes their decades-long marriage more plausible and allows for a richer impact when the two become increasingly at odds, both believably wounding one another’s egos and causing irreparable harm to the life they’ve built together. I won’t lie and claim to be impartial in the vaccine debate, and so my building hatred towards Don is a fantastic indicator of how well he was playing the role, really digging into the stuck-in-his-ways, don’t-tell-me-what-to-do ethos of the character.

Ainsworth delivers a masterful performance, really selling the moments of everyday humour and those of incendiary conflict. As funny as she is throwing jokey barbs her husband’s way, she is just as cutting when tossing them with genuine malice, and brings a palpable devastation to life after a particularly ugly encounter. Stood at the front of the stage, eyes covered in shadow, she manages to turn off all feeling, all expression, and truly sell the absolute agony of being betrayed by the person she’s spent decades trusting. A gargantuan task, Ainsworth manages to capture the highs, the lows, and the constant shifts that shaped the early 2020s for many of us.

Perhaps a better recreation of the nation’s combined feelings than it is a true exploration of the era, credit has to be given to all involved with Jab for their willingness to mine such recent history, such still-present emotions. Where circular conversations and the same complaints continually being made can be a lot when condensed into scarcely more than an hour, it would be foolish to suggest that it wasn’t the reality for many people for many months, and whether or not myself and others struggle to connect with material about these still-ongoing shifts in society, McDermott and Le Crass have definitely captures that tone.

Jab plays at the Park Theatre until April 26th

For tickets and information visit https://parktheatre.co.uk/event/jab/

Photos by Steve Gregson