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.
The star took to the stage at Park Theatre, despite the Strictly Come Dancing scandal surrounding her allegations against pro Giovanni Pernice.
Amanda’s new play, which is directed by Jez Bond, follows her role of Tara in the true story about a mother trying to hold her family together after a devastating event changes the course of their lives.
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.
Here, MailOnline rounds oup what the critics have to say about Amanda’s newest acting project…
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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
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The star took to the stage at Park Theatre, despite the Strictly Come Dancing scandal surrounding her allegations against pro Giovanni Pernice (pictured performing on July 31)
The Telegraph
Ben Lawrence
Abbington plays a watchful, gimlet-eyed matriarch, who’s incapable of being “the provider of love” to her children after her daughter, Esme, is raped. It’s an accomplished performance, with Abbington expertly balancing humour and profound sadness, lighting up Jez Bond’s otherwise underpowered production.
Abbington is in firm control of the material, Rosie Day and Miles Molan as her children are unable to wrestle anything interesting from their two-dimensional characters. Day, in particular, is given very little to work with, as Esme goes from victim to self-destructive catastrophe with little psychological insight from O’Dell to guide her. Tok Stephen, in a variety of roles, including Tara’s privileged lover Ethan, fares slightly better.
The Guardian
Chris Wiegand
In a stylised and erratic opening sequence, the play establishes a pattern of flashing back and forward so that the raw anguish of events in the moment is tempered by a reflective tone. It brings a contrast not just in the dialogue but in Abbington’s physical performance: Tara gesticulates as if trying to impose order amid the torment, while she narrates these events retrospectively with a furrowed focus.
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.
inews
Fiona Mountford
Amanda plays the pivotal role in this oddly under-powered four-hander by bestselling American writer Tawni O’Dell, based on O’Dell’s own gruelling family experience. It’s impossible to shake the suspicion that this material would work far better as a memoir than a piece of theatre; as it stands, it makes for a heavy-going 90 minutes – and not because of the subject matter. Abbington is a pillar of strength throughout, acting as the quasi-narrator and addressing us directly as she recounts a 3am phone call with devastating news about her daughter Esme (Rosie Day).
As for the actress herself, one trusts that she feels sufficiently well looked after on this production in contrast to her Strictly struggles: among the credits for the creative team there is mention of mental health support as well as a production well-being practitioner.
The Times
Nancy Durrant
Some clunky digressions aside, the script hops along; it’s even funny. Abbington has a warmth and ease that holds your attention: she sells this at a premium. Of course, being O’Dell’s avatar, Tara also gets most of the best lines.
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.
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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 (cast pictured on July 31)
Time Out
Abbington is painfully good as Tara, layering anger and vulnerability as her character struggles not only with how to help her daughter but how to confront the impact of the rape on herself. It’s an unsentimental performance – internalised and suddenly fierce.
She brandishes the play’s bleak narratorial sarcasm like a defence mechanism. And when the play takes a breath and slows to a long final scene that makes a reveal that is devastatingly unsurprising, she holds that moment with a burning sense of honesty and entreaty. As a woman talking about the actions of men, she makes the ‘liveness’ of theatre count in an electrifying way.
The Stage
Dave Fargnoli
Powerful performances drive this UK premiere of Tawni O’Dell’s frank facts-based account of the aftermath of sexual assault”
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.
What’sOnStage
Alun Hood
Abbington is magnificent. Resilient and witty, until trauma and guilt thrust those positive attributes out of her reach, she has an emotional availability that feels completely organic, and a commanding presence that is both reassuring and formidable. She’s the beating heart of the show.
Day’s Esme is terrific too, her stooped posture, vacant eyes and lifeless, hanging arms capturing with heartbreaking accuracy the body language of somebody who has pretty much given up. Her outbursts of anger are frighteningly convincing.
Broadway World
Josh Maughan
O’Dell’s triumphant script is only further illuminated by the play’s excellent cast.
Amanda Abbington delivers an acting masterclass as Tara. She is acrobatic in her portrayal; I was spellbound by her heartbreak. Rosie Day, Miles Molan, and Tok Stephen are constantly engaged and engaging and form a machine around Abbington.
Director Jez Bond is responsible for this well-oiled machine. His directing – complimented by Melanie Wilson’s pulsing sound design – is slick, provoking, and meticulous. It’s very clever, if not too clever for its own good. Every beat is considered, and it becomes almost clinical. While it works for the most part, at times I felt it removed necessary emotion from the dialogue and didn’t allow scenes to hold the power they deserved.
