SPIRAL at Jermyn Street Theatre

★★

“There were so many opportunities to explore interesting nuances that were missed”

This play doesn’t know what it wants to be. A study of vulnerability and coercive control? A tense thriller where we are left doubting the intentions of a seemingly kindly English teacher? An exploration of grief, loss and hope? By stretching itself too thin, Spiral achieves none of these and results in a confusing and uncomfortable show. Only the energy of writer Abigail Hood, who also stars in the central role of Leah, and a sensitive performance from Jasper Jacob as the grieving Tom save Spiral from total destruction.

Spiral opens with a meeting between a young woman dressed in school uniform, and an older man in an apparently transactional relationship. We then discover that despite the seedy undertones, Tom has hired Leah as a coping mechanism to deal with the stress wrought by the mysterious disappearance of his daughter several months prior. The reason for the schoolgirl get up? Leah is a doppelgänger for his missing daughter. Tom and Leah strike up an unlikely friendship, which challenges Tom’s relationship with his wife Gill (Rebecca Crankshaw) and tarnishes his reputation in his community which is – quite understandably – suspicious of his intentions.

The staging is simple. Newspaper cuttings paste the floor and five small blocks are the only substantial items on set. Highlighted phrases in the cuttings appear to reference the case of Tom’s missing daughter, which is an interesting choice when the disappearance is treated as an accessory to the main plot, and the circumstances not explored in depth. The stage felt underutilised, the vast majority of scenes played out as if on a proscenium arch and not in a compact black box space.

The direction (Kevin Tomlinson, who also appears as Mark) is uneven. Actors are often static, with limited use of the space or different levels. A moment with stylised and sexualised play between Leah and Mark therefore jars with the rest of production, and I wish there was more done to make other scenes more visually interesting. Where props are used, sometimes they clutter the stage, resulting in clumsy clean ups between scenes. Portrayals of violence are brief and unsubtle which reduces the tension despite Tomlinson depicting truly horrible abuse.

There were so many opportunities to explore interesting nuances that were missed. While Tom finds Leah, Gill finds alcohol and religion. How much comfort can these really give? How problematic are they for her? We never get to find out. How much does she really suspect Tom for involvement in her daughter’s disappearance? Is she to blame for not trusting him? All unexplored.

Another frustration: the sexual politics are outdated. Leah only escorts at the behest of her scrounging pimp and boyfriend, showing little to no agency, and requires ‘saving’ by Tom, to whom she is eternally grateful. Leah is portrayed as uncomplicatedly pure; the abuse she has suffered through her life has not tarnished her ultimately sunny outlook. As the ‘ideal’ victim, I found her hard to believe, and a little uninteresting as a result.

I would love to watch Hood in another production, as she has a warmth and vibrancy that lights up the stage. Jacob and Crankshaw are also fine actors, able to communicate a devastating range of emotions, even when not the focal point of scenes. It is just a shame that Spiral does not have the subtlety or ambiguity to allow its actors to find real emotional depths.

SPIRAL at Jermyn Street Theatre

Reviewed on 7th August 2023

by Rosie Thomas

Photography by Mark Dawson

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Farm Hall | ★★★★ | March 2023

Love All | ★★★★ | September 2022

Cancelling Socrates | ★★★★ | June 2022

Orlando | ★★★★ | May 2022

Footfalls and Rockaby | ★★★★★ | November 2021

The Tempest | ★★★ | November 2021

This Beautiful Future | ★★★ | August 2021

Spiral

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★★★

“the laughs and cheers throughout were evidence of a job well done”

Streaming Beauty is an online interactive adult panto. Hosted by the marvellously named Annette Curtains (Tom Marshman), it asks its Zoom attendees to complete silly festive tasks to help wake the eponymous heroine from her slumber, brought on by ‘fingering a prick’. The overarching tone is tongue-in-cheek queer naughtiness, and the show is peppered throughout with knowing pop culture references, with Hymen Bowel (Lotte Allan) presenting The Sex Factor, Angelina Unholy fetish icon (Peter Baker) and the Artist Formerly Known as Prince Charming (Edson Burton) all featuring. Here, as in real life panto, much depends on the gusto and spirit of the audience. More than any other theatrical form, panto really is what you make it. If you walk into the theatre, or switch on your Zoom, ready to contribute and to have a good night then you will. It says much about the resilience both of the form and the COVID-beseiged British audience that the panto spirit was firmly in evidence last night. Given that much of the show is in Zoom Gallery View format, the audience is quite literally on show as much as the performers, and the families, couples and singletons who were in attendance rose to the challenge admirably.

That being said, it does take an effort of will to supply atmosphere whilst staring at a laptop, and the sad reality is that it is impossible to be unaware of the limitations of the small screen in this most rambunctious theatrical form. Peter Baker and Tom Marshman adapted the most successfully to these strictures, by having an awareness of them and playing with close-ups and the edges of the frame. This is clearly a new-found skill in the actor’s arsenal, and, inevitably, some performers have been better able to take up the challenge than others.

Stephanie Kempson (director) and her company Sharp Teeth are clearly at the cutting edge of online theatre, and this panto comes hot on the heels of their successful online interactive Sherlock Holmes show, which also put the audience into breakout rooms and provided them with tasks to fulfil. Whilst being a natural fit for an immersive detective drama, this structure did feel like something of an imposition on the panto format, and this reviewer did pine for more panto and less escape room, but it seems that mine was the minority view, and the rest of last night’s audience clearly relished the games aspect of the evening. It was a full house last night, with 90 people logged in, and the laughs and cheers throughout were evidence of a job well done.

Reviewed by Rebecca Crankshaw

Tag Archives: Rebecca Crankshaw

Spiral

★★

Jermyn Street Theatre

SPIRAL at Jermyn Street Theatre

★★

“There were so many opportunities to explore interesting nuances that were missed”