Amanda Abbington's new play When it Happens to You has received stellar reviews from critics following its press night on Tuesday. Here, MailOnline rounds up what the critics have to say about it.
Have YOU got a story? Email [email protected] Amanda Abbington 's new play When it Happens to You has received stellar reviews from critics following its press night on Tuesday, which praise the actress for 'expertly balancing humour and profound sadness' in her performance.
When it Happens to You was written by Tawni O’Dell and based on her own experience, following the assault of her daughter in New York. It's cast includes Rosie Day as Esme, Miles Molan as Connor and Tok Stephen in multiple roles.
Jez Bond’s 90-minute, interval-free production has the incongruous pace of a thriller, with abrupt switches in Sherry Coenen’s lighting and jagged bursts of sound by Melanie Wilson. It can all distract from O’Dell’s script which is designed as a corrective to such empty phrases as “finding closure” and “making a fresh start”. The play pertinently foregrounds the long-term effects of sexual assault for survivors and their loved ones. Its message remains essential, even if the medium is flawed.
A devastating last-act revelation is shocking, but the statistics we’re left with, spat with controlled rage and anguish by Abbington — that one in four women have been raped, and that this is a conservative estimate — ram home how horrifically quotidian this family’s story is. I left empty and anxious. Try not to walk home alone.
Amanda Abbington gives a shattering, laser-focused performance as narrator Tara – a character based on, and originated by, O’Dell, but renamed for this production. Abbington is utterly convincing as the outwardly tough, confident mother, hiding self-doubt behind a veneer of superiority and deploying her sharp wit as a coping mechanism. But Abbington reveals powerful feelings churning under the surface – grief and outrage chief among them.Abbington is magnificent.
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