DramaFeaturedLondonReview

Pins and Needles – Kiln Theatre, London

Reviewer: Nilgün Yusuf

Writer: Rob Drummond

Director: Amit Sharma

The text of Pins and Needles starts with a warning: CONTAINS TRUTH, LIES AND MISINFORMATION. YOU DECIDE. These may be the only honest words in this new play by award-winning writer Rob Drummond. This first production of Amit Sharmer’s inaugural season as artistic director – he also directs Pins and Needles – explores the theories and conspiracies surrounding vaccinations in a post-Covid world.

At the centre – although he shouldn’t be in it at all, something he keeps reminding us of – is a writer called Rob. Gavi Singh Chera, in a warm, engaging performance, initially addresses the audience directly. With his references to writing a verbatim play for Kiln Theatre, is this Rob Drummond himself? Or simply a character called Rob? As Rob starts his research, using real books as well as the Internet, he finds three central subjects.

There’s the stark-staring anti-vaxer, Robert, played by Brian Vernel, all sound and fury, an evangelical glint in his eye, mistrust in every bone of his tracksuit-clad body. There’s the old interview Rob dug up from when the Kiln was the Tricycle with Mary, a calm and reasoned academic and mother played by Vivienne Acheampong with strong views about the MMR jab. And the star of the piece, Dr Edward Jenner, inventor of the smallpox vaccine in 1796, reanimated through the power of theatre and a memorable performance by Richard Cant.

Cant’s Dr Jenner strides around the stage in breeches and buckled shoes like someone from Rentaghost, listening to the other characters intently and occasionally, incongruously playing a flute. With his West Country lilt, he is passionate about science, evidence, and reason. Dismissed in his day by the medical establishment, his smallpox vaccine – and similar versions – would go on to save millions. Richard Cant, the son of much-loved Brian Cant of 1970s Play Away fame, brings a wonderful wit to this characterisation, a breath of fresh air from all the cerebral machinations.

Incisively directed and cleverly written, Pins and Needles is an unpredictable puzzle of a play that sets out to dismantle and disrupt any form of certainty. Not only does it throw up endless questions around the emotive subject matter of vaccinations, but it also challenges a theatre audience’s expectations, notions of authors as ultimate authorities and of the concept of truth itself. How can anyone claim to know or tell the truth? How do we ever know who or what to trust?

The conceptual nature of the play is reflected in Frankie Bradshaw’s set, a contemporary construction of tubular metal, a combination of a child’s activity centre and playground, perhaps a metaphor for the mind or a representation of the playfulness at work. The writer and performers play with the audience constantly, who might not even realise they are in a game. And in this playground of trickery, illusion, and deceit, our minds, which seek patterns, truth, catharsis, and resolution, play with our perception and understanding.

As Pins and Needles moves through a scientific ‘five-act’ framework: The Question, Predictions, Data, Analysis and Conclusions, this debate across time leaves plenty for the audience to think about. Mary, Rob, Robert and Dr Jenner all bring their own knowledge, experience, and emotion to their truth. All have secrets, reveals, agendas and subjectivity because they are sentient humans with personal experiences.

At a time when trust is at an all-time low, Pins and Needles also challenges the easy claims of Verbatim Theatre as being more ‘truthful’ than other forms. Don’t expect any happy-ever-after endings, but do go in ready to look for the needles in this impressive haystack of a play. The word conceptual isn’t often twinned with fun, and despite its serious subject matter, this play manages to do just that.

Runs until 26 October 2024

The Reviews Hub Score

Challenging, conceptual, provocative, and playful

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The Reviews Hub - London

The Reviews Hub London is under the editorship of Richard Maguire. The Reviews Hub was set up in 2007. Our mission is to provide the most in-depth, nationwide arts coverage online.

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