Review: JAB, Park Theatre

Sometimes you’re unlucky enough to sit in a room and wonder why plays exist. Jab is an unfortunate example of this. Anne and Don have been married for nearly three decades and they despise each other. She would normally brush his sexist remarks and complacency under the rug, mostly ignoring him during the day as a busy NHS worker, but the nation’s entering the first lockdown. Isolating together, they’re forced to look at their issues.

Written by James McDermott and inspired by true events, Jab supposedly explores the last drops of a marriage playing against the Covid pandemic. It’s like if someone saw Stephen Daldry and Dennis Kelly’s Together, went "I can do that!" and decided to rewrite it.

The bigger picture is there: a show about lockdown, domestic violence, and the threat of antivaxxers. The problem is that it’s acutely unengaging and has nothing new to say. It’s a fatiguing window into something we’ve not only already seen, something we’ve experienced firsthand. The wine-induced sentimentalism of the early days of isolation giving way to borderline alcoholism, the novelty of working from home becoming a burden, numbers growing on the telly. Et cetera. As they watch the news, McDermott’s cheap commentary as to what they can or can’t do is trite and boring. You can see the violence coming from the very start. 

The couple is, admittedly, well crafted and has a lot of potential as characters in a different play. Money is a contentious issue: she’s the breadwinner; he has a vintage shop that doesn’t make anything. She reminds him throughout. Menopausal and tired, she’s worried about the virus while he eats crisps and belches away from his armchair. Don is so deeply unlikeable and horrible to Anne that - spoiler alert - when he catches Covid and finally dies you can’t help but think of a full-hearted “good riddance.” Perhaps that’s the point of the whole agonising thing. It would still benefit from better dialogues and a stronger grasp on a real message.

Kacey Ainsworth and Liam Tobin deliver solid performances. We amble between feeling sorry and pure anger for their characters, but principally wish the piece away. They’re hurtful to each other for 75 minutes straight. She resents his presence in the house and he treats her like a maid or a personal assistant. As he starts assaulting her during the night, Ainsworth visibly hedgehogs while Tobin dehumanises her. Scott Le Crass directs the short sequences (many of them featuring the duo glaring at one another in silence) with a naturalistic flair, but raises a few questions.

Why is Anne always wearing her NHS lanyard when she’s working from home? Is it a power move in case her husband or any of us forget what she does? Why do these people have four single armchairs arranged in a line in their sitting room? Is it meant to symbolise their selfishness? Jab has been hailed as the pick of the litter of all pandemic plays, but it lacks grip, perspective, an objective, and the gift of hindsight.

Jab runs at the Park Theatre until 26 April