Review: JAB - Finborough Theatre

Photography: Steve Gregson

Four years on from the devastating health crisis that continues to cripple the theatre industry, the Finborough Theatre present the world premiere of James McDermott’s black Covid comedy about the domestic breakdown of couple locked down together. After 29 years of marriage, the cracks begin to appear in the relationship between NHS worker Anne and her antagonistic anti-vaxxer husband Don.

James McDermott’s script is packed with spiky banter that grows increasingly tense and barbed as the months of isolation continue to extend.

The intimate space of the Finborough Theatre is a perfect capsule for this production which relies so heavily on a sense of grating claustrophobia and eye-twitching tension that will resonate with anyone and everyone who lived through the Covid-19 pandemic. Director Scott Le Crass manages to inject this production, which takes place entirely within the confines of Anne and Don’s living room, with dynamism. The movement onstage becomes increasingly erratic and frantic as Don and Anne’s relationship becomes more overtly toxic.

Towards the end of this short play, the pace begins to drag. The issue is that from the outset Don is so violently unsympathetic that there is very little dramatic tension when his health begins to decline. In the concluding scrappy scenes that take place over one-sided telephone exchanges We were just left impatiently willing on his death.

Kacey Ainsworth is brilliant and brings a harrowing sense of dread to her performance. Ainsworth is an infectiously joyful and magnetic performer to watch.

Beyond an impressive display of belching on command, Liam Tobin performs with subtle and insidious menace. Apologies to any audience members who could see us scowling across the thrust stage with poorly disguised disdain for this character.

Leah Kelly’s set design is largely unremarkable, except for an exceptional flourish at the end of the show using the original windows in the Finborough auditorium, blasting the audience with fresh air, road noise and light pollution from the outside world - and the worlds inside and outside the play clash spectacularly.

The shadows of the pandemic still loom over the Finborough Theatre. Since the theatre re-opened its doors in 2021, the pub downstairs has remained closed. In the wake of the Hope Theatre’s sudden and tragic closure in Islington, it has never been more important to rally around to support Off-West End venues and pub theatres - a uniquely precarious model balancing two fragile industries literally on top of each other.

This is another poignant and timely piece presented by the Finborough, which after the success of 1979 last month, continues to show that it has its finger on the cultural and political pulse.

3 stars ***

tickets can be purchased for the show here