Pins and Needles at Kiln Theatre
Jane Edwardes in north London
29 September 2024
Playwright Rob Drummond is not to be trusted. At the beginning of his new play, a man walks on stage and introduces himself as the playwright. Only he’s not. The programme states that Rob Drummond is played by Gavi Singh Chera. There couldn’t be a clearer warning that Pins and Needles is going to keep us guessing right until the final word.
Chera’s Drummond wants to talk about vaccines. A controversial topic. Fortunately, he swerves away from asking us to vote on whether we are for or against them. The idea is to bring the audience together, not to tear us apart. Vaccines depend on trust. We can’t live without trust but every so often there is a big decision to be made. Who do we listen to? Google? Men in white coats? Politicians? Boris Johnson? Surely not.
The playwright intends to investigate the topic through the form of verbatim theatre. The play is, after all, being staged in what was once called the Tricycle Theatre, famous for re-creating inquiries into such cases as the death of Stephen Lawrence and the causes of the Iraq War. The shows drew on the exact words of those involved, allowing different points of view to breathe in the same shared space in front of a live audience.
Despite the elegance of Frankie Bradshaw’s set, which with its red and blue tubes recalls both a laboratory and a playground, Drummond initially apologizes for the scruffiness of the room allocated to him for his interview. In 2012, he interviewed Mary to whom he explains the concept of verbatim theatre. She would like Helen Mirren to play her. “I know she’s not black but I don’t care, I love her.” She believed Andrew Wakefield when he said that children who received the MMR vaccine were in danger of developing autism.
Many years later, Drummond interviewed Robert, whose mother died during the pandemic shortly after being vaccinated. And, finally, proving that the playwright is not really committed to verbatim theatre at all, he introduces Edward Jenner, the 18th-century scientist and father of immunology.
Drummond may or may not have interviewed Mary and Robert. He may or may not have used their exact words. Even if he did, he can’t have used all of them, and, in the editing, inevitably opinions seep through. What he can do is allow different points of view to be presented in a single arena. Even Robert (Brian Vernel) pumped up on the idea that companies like Pfizer are more interested in making money than saving lives, never shouts anyone down.
We begin to understand why Robert and Mary feel as they do. Mary is a researcher in evolutionary science, not someone to fall for fake news. But when she read Andrew Wakefield’s claims in The Lancet, of all places, she had every reason to believe he was telling the truth. Robert discovered that the Covid vaccine could cause blood clots and jumped to the conclusion that that was the cause of his mother’s death. The play can be dry, but that’s not the case when Vivienne Acheampong’s Mary relives the terrible consequences of putting her faith in Wakefield. Or when Jenner describes the brutal ways of protecting children against smallpox before his ideas were adopted.
As the whimsical Jenner, Richard Cant is a delight. He gently nudges the others to adopt a more scientific point of view, to encourage an open mind, and admire those who are prepared to admit that they don’t know. Watching the play stirs one’s own prejudices and anxieties. Parents will surely recall their fears about MMR before Wakefield’s lies were exposed. Even now, immunization rates are lower than they were in 1990. Some might remember their relief when the Covid vaccine became available; others their suspicions that it had not been tested enough.
With only the slimmest of characterization to work with, the actors struggle not to be stilted. It’s quite a tough call for Amit Sharma’s first production as artistic director of the Kiln Theatre.
Chera keeps both the audience and his guests guessing, as magician-like he pulls away a series of carpets to reveal another surprise. Undeniably, Drummond has a teasing way with theatrical form, which is always intriguing, even if the play never quite flies.
