DramaLondonReview

Tapped – Theatre503, London

Reviewer: Jane Darcy

Writer: Katie Redford

Director: Piers Black

Tapped is writer Katie Redford’s likeable debut stage play, a comedy with a melancholy undertow. It’s set in the leaky garage of Gavi, an irrepressible young man inaugurating his motivational group, Go Get It!. He has had the T-shirts printed, chalked inspirational ideas on the walls and laid out Club biscuits. But so far only two people have turned up: friends and fellow Co-op employees, Dawn and her stroppy daughter Jen. But in the way you know from the cast list of Waiting for Godot that Godot will be a no-show, Tapped has a cast of three: no one else is ever going to appear. This makes for an slightly uneasy atmosphere throughout the play. So much will rest on the shoulders of the three characters.

Undeterred, Gavi gets going, asking the pair to set a goal, eagerly awaiting their answers so he can write them on the wall. Dawn’s unexpected response is that her house is haunted so she wants to set up a Paranormal Group. Dawn, played with sympathy and sly timing by Jennifer Daley, provides much of the comedy in the show with her inventively daft ideas about a haunted cardigan and attempts to contact the dead. Something of her back story emerges. She has suffered from crippling depression which made her unequal to giving her daughter the love she craved. It’s a worthy theme, but not entirely convincing, as we get little sense of what her depression was about, or how she emerged into the seemingly level headed, if a bit off-beam, woman she now is.

Olivia Sweeney as Jen convincingly turns from stoppy post-adolescent to warm young woman as she confides in Gavi her lost hopes of becoming a singer. There’s an audition for job singing in a bar in Madrid, but she’s intimidated by the idea. Here is something Gavi can really work with. But is inspiration from Spandau Ballet really enough?

Max Hastings is marvellous as the eager but vulnerable Gavi, nervously channelling his energy into staying positive. He is emotionally undernourished after years of living with a chronically sick mother. As the play continues he becomes increasingly manic, restlessly crossing through some chalked notes, scribbling new ones. But we aren’t given quite enough to understand him. Redford draws his friendship with Jen with great tenderness, but a single reference to suggest he’s gay is hard to make sense of without further development.

Ceci Calf’s design is excellent, particularly when cracks appear in the concrete wall revealing seams of gold, illustrating Redford’s epigram ‘How are we meant to see the light if there are no cracks?’ Tapped shows Katie Redford’s potential as a writer and provides an entertaining evening out.

Runs until 23 April 2022

The Reviews Hub Score

An entertaining evening

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The Reviews Hub London is under the acting 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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