Jab at Park Theatre Revisits Lockdown in London

Jab at Park Theatre Explores Lockdown Strains

As the world continues to unpack the seismic shifts of the COVID-19 pandemic, theatre offers a unique lens to reflect on those surreal years. Among the latest works tackling this collective experience is Jab, a dark domestic comedy by playwright James McDermott, which arrives at Park Theatre’s Park90 space from 2 to 26 April 2025. Directed by Scott Le Crass and starring Kacey Ainsworth and Liam Tobin as a fracturing couple, the play promises a sharp, unsettling look at love, isolation, and the limits of patience. Drawing on insights from a recent Q&A with McDermott, Le Crass, and Tobin, this preview explores how Jab navigates its intimate story, balancing raw realism with theatrical bite.

From Personal Truth to Theatrical Tension

McDermott, a Norfolk-born playwright whose credits include Time and Tide (Park Theatre) and episodes of BBC’s EastEnders, roots Jab in lived experience. “As the play is only seventy-five minutes long, in order to create a satisfying impactful drama, I chose to present or adapt moments in my parents’ story that contain the most conflict, action, change, theatricality or symbolism,” he explains. The script, loosely based on his parents’ lives during lockdown, threads real-life fragments into a cohesive narrative. “As real life is messy, I’ve shaped the play by trying to find some cause-and-effect narrative between several disparate real-life events. When I couldn’t do this, I’ve invented scenes to serve the story, structure, dramatic intentions and message of the play,” McDermott adds.

He’s careful to weave in “personal truths when it felt appropriate, tactful and when they hopefully help me say or show something about our collective truths.” The result is a story of Anne, an exhausted NHS worker (Ainsworth), and Don, her conspiracy-minded husband (Tobin), trapped together as the world shuts down. Their 29-year marriage unravels through bickering, revelations, and moments of stark vulnerability, touching on themes like gender dynamics, domestic strain, and the clash of belief systems.

“As the play is only seventy five minutes long, in order to create a satisfying impactful drama, I chose to present or adapt moments in my parents story that contain the most conflict, action, change, theatricality or symbolism”

James McDermott

First staged at Finborough Theatre in 2024—where it earned OffWestEnd Award nominations for Best New Play, Best Director, and Best Duo Performance—Jab resonated with audiences for its unflinching gaze. McDermott notes that while the core text remains largely unchanged for Park Theatre, “the odd overtly expositional line, misplaced stage direction or joke that didn’t quite land have been reworked.” The new venue’s Park90 stage, distinct from Finborough’s compact space, will likely shift the production’s dynamics more than its words: “It’s the production more than the text that will change the most.”

Staging Intimacy and Tension

Director Scott Le Crass, whose recent credits include the West End transfer of Rose starring Maureen Lipman, faced the challenge of translating Jab’s claustrophobic story into a visually compelling piece. With over 70 short scenes, the play’s structure reads more like a screenplay than a traditional stage work. “One of the most important things to me was to not present the play in a completely literal staging, firstly as I felt would be dull and secondly there are over 70 scenes and reads like a piece of screen work, so I needed them to feel unique and distinctive which was the biggest challenge,” Le Crass shares.

“One of the most important things to me was to not present the play in a completely literal staging, firstly as I felt would be dull and secondly there are over 70 scenes and reads like a piece of screen work, so I needed them to feel unique and distinctive which was the biggest challenge”

Scott Le Crass

His approach aims to keep the realism of Anne and Don’s domestic unravelling while ensuring the stage feels alive and varied—a delicate balance for a story confined to a single living room. Le Crass also reflects on theatre’s role in processing the pandemic’s lingering weight. “I think this play, through its sharp observation and dark humour, allows us to understand, process and hopefully move beyond what was such a strange and often bleak time,” he says. “It’s an event that unifies us, but is so specific in our own individual experience.”

McDermott echoes this, highlighting theatre’s communal power: “Often, we consume other media in isolation which can augment our individual feelings of anxiety or loneliness. When we see a play, we come together with other human beings and share a live cathartic experience. This can help us collectively process and reframe trauma in a community.”

Chemistry and Unsettling Discoveries

At the heart of Jab are Kacey Ainsworth and Liam Tobin, whose portrayals of Anne and Don anchor the play’s emotional stakes. Tobin, a stage veteran with credits like Boys From The Black Stuff at the National Theatre, describes their process: “You build it in rehearsal usually which of course we did with Scott and James’ help. But also Kacey and I have worked together a few times before so that always helps develop a shorthand together. Just as well considering it was quite a quick turnaround the first time around!”

The play’s blend of dark comedy and tension unearthed surprises in rehearsal. Tobin recalls, “It was surprising to sit and discuss that whole strange time and realise we all had slightly different recollections of the timeline of national events, of what happened when and how early or far along in the lockdown things occurred.” The distance of a few years brought clarity: “I feel that unless your own health or that of a loved one was affected we all just kind of got on with our lives again and didn’t want to dwell on it. But looking back with a bit of distance it was fascinating and kind of validated the choice to write and stage a play on it a few years down the line. It was huge and warrants re-examination and appraisal.”

The decline of Anne and Don’s relationship also struck a nerve. “As for the relationship, it is shocking how it declines and to what extent,” Tobin notes. “We had to make choices on how much we should show, although the script is very clear, even James was wondering if he’d gone too far.” Audience reactions at Finborough varied—some felt the play could push further, while others found the implications chilling enough. “Sometimes if the implication is clear enough what you don’t show can be more powerful in your own imagination,” Tobin adds.

The Role of Humor in Dark Times

Described as a “dark domestic comedy,” Jab leans heavily on humour in an attempt to navigate its heavy themes. McDermott explains its function: “In Jab, much of the humour comes from the working class characters’ wit and cattiness as well as the actors’ perfectly pitched comic timing and delivery.” He sees humour as a vital tool for tackling tough subjects: “I do think humour is an essential tool in telling stories about difficult subjects. Creating spaces for humour in drama creates pressure valves where the audience can release tension through laughter. When we laugh in the face of something difficult, it diminishes that difficult thing’s power over us and helps us cope with it.”

This interplay of wit and unease—cattiness giving way to raw confrontation—certainly mirrors the unpredictable rhythms of lockdown itself. McDermott’s script isn’t trying to shy away from the messiness of human relationships, instead using humour as both a shield and a scalpel to cut to the core of Anne and Don’s unravelling bond.

A Return to Park Theatre

Jab marks a return for McDermott, whose play Time and Tide was staged at Park Theatre in 2020, earning acclaim for its tender exploration of queer life in coastal Norfolk. Le Crass also revisits the venue, having directed Rose here before its West End run. The production, presented by Sue Pomroy in association with Park Theatre, looks to build on its Finborough success with a cast and crew attuned to its delicate balance of levity and darkness.

Running at Park90 for a tight 75 minutes without an interval, Jab promises a concentrated dose of theatre that’s as funny as it is disquieting. It’s a chance to revisit a period many would rather forget, not through rose-tinted nostalgia but via the messy, human lens of a marriage pushed to its limits. As McDermott, Le Crass, and Tobin reveal, the play’s power lies in its specificity—a single couple’s story that echoes the fractures felt by so many. Whether it cathartically releases lingering tensions or stirs up buried memories, Jab seems poised to spark conversation when it opens this April in London.

Featured Image: Kacey Ainsworth and Liam Tobin in Jab – Image provided by show PR