Writer: Joshua J. Jewkes
Jared works at not just any call centre, but a hotline for people considering cheating on their partners. As acting supervisor, he takes particular pride in the fact that they have just reached 7,000 customers. Jared uses the milestone as an opportunity to give us, the audience, an insight into the calls he takes by asking each caller if he can put them on speaker for ‘training purposes’.
The two calls he receives initially appear to offer textbook examples of gendered stereotypes around infidelity: the first, a man attempting to justify his cheating through the distance that has grown between him and his partner following the birth of their child; the second, a woman going through the distrustful steps of checking her partner’s phone. Jared attempts to guide us through the ‘grey areas’ of infidelity, encouraging us to sympathise with those who cheat, but the exploration never goes far enough to offer any meaningful justification or challenge our assumptions.
The spiel soon becomes repetitive and dry as Jared runs through the various reasons someone might cheat: neglected love, a drunken mistake, boredom and jealousy. The writing often feels overly explanatory and for much of its 50-minute runtime, the show feels more like a lecture, lacking the plot, structure and character development needed to sustain the premise. It is only in the final 15 minutes that we are given a glimpse into what is actually happening in Jared’s own life, introducing a potentially compelling contradiction between his personal circumstances and his professional role. However, unfortunately, the story ends just as it begins to develop.
The one-man format is not helped by a performance that lacks sincerity and fails to tap into the comedic potential of the material. At times, the delivery even veers towards the robotic, with little connection to the words being spoken. A more engaged performance could bring greater humanity to what is otherwise fairly dry material.
With the combination of writing and performance, Keeping Your Spots unfortunately doesn’t quite match, in execution, the intrigue of its premise.
Runs until 8 October 2026
