Review: JAB at Finborough Theatre, London

Date: 23rd February 2024

Seat: Unallocated

Tickets: Gifted

Rating: 4 Stars 

It’s almost impossible to believe that it’s coming up for four years since the UK’s first lockdown was looming. But don’t worry if your memories of that strange time are starting to fade, as James McDermott’s Jab will bring them all straight back again. It’s not a comfortable journey to take. 

Married couple Anne (Kacey Ainsworth) and Don (Liam Tobin) have been together for 29 years, and they’re mostly happy. They bicker and, yes, jab at one another, but it’s all in good fun. In fact, the play starts with the pair drunkenly laughing and dancing to Sweet Dream (Are Made Of This) by the Eurythmics, a throwback to when they first met in a nightclub in Skeggy. 

Anne is an NHS worker on the frontline as the COVID-19 pandemic starts to spread, and Don has a vintage shop, although it doesn’t make much (if any) money, and Anne’s the one who has to pay for everything. That’s not a problem at first – it’s what the couple chose, and it meant Don took on the child-rearing responsibilities for their two boys. But as lockdown goes on and on (and on), it becomes a niggling issue that is the catalyst for what is essentially the breakdown of a once strong relationship. The fact that Don refuses to get the COVID jab does the rest. 

Ainsworth is a fascinating performer to watch, especially with the tiny looks of disgust Anne throws in Don’s direction as they sneer at one another, or sit in silence watching TV or reading the paper. She is able to go from a loving, happy wife to a woman who can barely conceal her hatred of the man she thought she knew. When she gets the freedom she was yearning for, Anne is left in flux, staring wistfully out of a window, listening to the very real sounds of the outside world; and that gaze tells the audience everything they need to know. 

Tobin as Don is just as captivating. Like a caged animal, he becomes more and more frustrated, and more and more dangerous. Although we don’t see it (although we do see the ever-growing and very threatening anger and resentment he feels), Don even goes as far as to sexually assault Anne, before making excuses for his behaviour. There are hints at other forms of domestic violence too, including some very nasty psychological abuse when he casually mentions a beautiful young woman who used to come to his shop “just to talk”. McDermott’s script is scattered with painful little prods and pokes, which over time create a hole in the marriage that could never be filled. However, Tobin plays Don with such disarming charm at first that the audience – if sides were to be picked – might feasibly side with him: he needs his shop, he’s trying his best, his wife’s a bore, stressed because of her job and… But that charm hides his real character, which eventually breaks free once the doors are locked for months on end. 

Jab starts as a comedy, but as the relationship collapses the jokes become fewer until the laughing stops altogether. The audience is silent, pondering what they’re watching, remembering their own feelings about lockdown, wondering at just how little we know and how much would change – or not – because of COVID. McDermott manages to fit the complex emotions that many of us are still trying to process into a deft and memorable 75 minutes, and although it might be too soon and too raw for some, for me it was a timely reminder of the lessons we learned but so easily forget.

Tickets are available here: https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk/production/jab/