Review: THE WHITE CHIP, Southwark Playhouse

The recent statistics surrounding alcohol consumption in the UK are frankly staggering. Across the four nations, around 80% of adults are regular drinkers, and a significant number of them drink way above the Chief Medical Officers’ low-risk guidelines. The country’s drinking culture is out of hand and few of us pay it much mind. Shows like The White Chip burst onto the scene in a blaze of counter-action, reframing a problem that is standard behaviour for many. After all, how can you let loose without sipping on something? 

Playwright Sean Daniels writes an alarmingly familiar scenario with a kick. Steven is on top of the world, with a life that many creatives envy. The fact that he’s permanently under the influence is a non-issue. Suddenly, everything spirals out of control, his dream job disappears from his reach and his friends abandon him. But how did he get to that stage? Everybody drinks, so why shouldn’t he? Directed by Matt Ryan, this is a hard-hitting, touching cautionary tale that manages to be bitterly funny and truly educational at once.

The play is quick in every way. The audience address makes it dynamic and personal, while the meta nature of the unconcealed theatre process adds spice to the pace. Ed Coleman (Steven) snaps his fingers, controlling sound and lights in a rollicking narration of how it all came to be. A smattering of Mormonism and all the hypocrisies, emotional manipulation, and arbitrary rules of the Church paint the picture for alcohol to become courage, disinhibition, and friendship. In the blink of an eye, though, it turns into arrests, DUIs, car crashes, and family disappointment.

Alcohol is interwoven with every moment of Steven’s life: society glamourises it, writers dine on it. It becomes the gateway to his success, with his creative disposition justifying his eccentricity. The piece takes it in steps, smashing all the right beats at the right time, backing up the autobiographical slant of Steven’s artistic prowess with Daniels’s factual skills. Once Steven starts finding clever ways to day-drink, the slippery essence of substance abuse reflects further into the machine-gun delivery of the narrative.

The vibe is an intriguing choice. Daniels claims it as a comedy, but it’s far more than that, with its juxtaposition between an almost bubbly m​​ise-en-scène and the grim material it presents. The story keeps twisting into disturbing drama each time it settles into humour, making it an eclectic, genre-defying production that will ultimately echo the individual experience of the crowd. Steven’s whirlwind of benders is retold in a flurry of sarcasm and hard truths that excuse him before heavily criticising his actions in subsequent loops of elation and guilt that turn into a vortex of relapses. Catharsis hits when Steven reaches the point of no return and unravels. 

Coleman’s tour de force is the lifeblood of the project. Brimming with energy, he’s relentlessly precise in the introspective analysis subtexted in Daniels’s writing. Mara Allen and Ashlee Irish join him as the other characters, the voices in his head, and even his subconscious, materialising the wreckage from the jaws of addiction. Ryan’s direction leans into the meta-theatrical side, leaving all cues out in the open as per Lee Newby’s design, down to the juncture where Steven is so far gone he can’t signal in the scene changes anymore. It’s affecting and effective. 

Autobiographical theatre can be tricky to spin into something that’s not fully self-indulgent or egocentric, but The White Chip does a good job. The moral of it is as direct as it could be, and it might just be what we need. It took losing everything for Steven to survive, but Daniels succeeds in removing his shame altogether.

The White Chip runs at Southwark Playhouse until 16 August.

Photography by Danny Kaan