Writer: Doubletake
Director: Molly Byrne
“Why do I have to teach them? Why can’t they just learn?” team member Joan frustratedly declares when asked to give a training session to the unseen male staff at the newly renamed Gay and Lesbian Switchboard, a theme that runs through Doubletake’s new play The Switchboard Project playing at the Hope Theatre. A multi-faceted piece that incorporates the real stories of male and female callers as well as interviews with volunteers, understanding the impact of providing a busy helpline in the mid-1980s, the safety of the volunteers and their commitment is painted against a backdrop of social stigma as AIDS moves through the community.
Four women working at the Switchboard struggle to manage their personal lives and the increasing demands from callers. Trainee Jackie is always late, but she grows in stature as she is welcomed onto the staff while Joan campaigns for women’s refuge charities and tries to train the male volunteers to take calls from lesbians. Meanwhile, Nana conceals the reason for her long absence, and supervisor Lou tries to hold it all together.
Building on Jack Holden’s work in Cruise, which focused on a single story emerging from the Switchboard, Doubletake’s play instead presents the breadth of support provided by the women volunteers and mixes together several different techniques to recreate the calls themselves. Sometimes, the audience hear only one side of the conversation, often when a jokey response or a more casual connection plays out, at others the four actors each player an assortment of male and female callers seeking advice from runaways whose parents react badly to their coming out, men seeking advice on perceived HIV symptoms and mothers hiding their sexuality until their children leave home.
And one of the most considered aspects of The Switchboard Project is the toll this takes on the four workers who try to be kind and supportive even when they are overwhelmed by the needs of others or seeing their own friends suffering. The creators use that as a boiling point for the show, asking how much notice they have really taken of each other’s needs in their commitment to strangers, and there is both enjoyment to be had in the development of the office relationships as well as the different strains that emerge as the show unfolds.
Performed by Áine McNamara as newbie Jackie, Megan Keaveny as the determined but tightly wound Joan, Hannah Balogun as the sweet but secretive Nana and Fatima Abdullahi, who gives Lou a calming influence, there is strength and depth in the ensemble who rarely appear together, so must build many unseen connections between scenes. The dynamic of new, established and returning staff works nicely against the increased paranoia and fear that accompanied public messaging in this period, balancing the small and personal stories with the larger, changing context.
The Switchboard Project, at 90 minutes, only starts to feel overwritten in its final phase, and once the characters air their grievances, the piece deflates slightly. The two subsequent scenes could offer a more compressed conclusion for the characters, although whoever is answering the phones, the continued need for the services of the Switchboard is a strong note to end on.
Runs until 20 September 2025
