When It Happens to You Reviews Starring Amanda Abbington at the Park Theatre

"Amanda Abbington compels in rape drama"

"The actor and former Strictly star brings warmth and rage to her role as the mother of a rape victim, directed by Jez Bond at Park Theatre in London"

"The novelist Tawni O’Dell’s true story of a devastating event and the fallout that nearly destroyed her family (originally performed by O’Dell herself, off-Broadway, to mixed reviews) is elevated in Jez Bond’s production by sympathetic direction and a tight-knit cast, led by Abbington as Tara, mother to Esme and Connor."

"Everyone makes bad decisions, everyone pushes everyone else away — though Bond’s thoughtful staging, which keeps all the players on stage throughout, manifests the ties that still hold them together. 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."

"Amanda Abbington is shattering"

"Powerful performances drive this UK premiere of Tawni O’Dell’s frank facts-based account of the aftermath of sexual assault"

"Candidly discussing the devastating emotional fallout of her daughter’s rape, Tawni O’Dell’s dramatised memoir is powerful and raw. Though the play is frequently earnest and intensely uncomfortable, never shying away from the traumas O’Dell’s family experienced, director Jez Bond’s production has a well-judged lightness of touch that keeps it from ever feeling preachy or exploitative."

"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."

"Amanda Abbington brings verve, but this play lacks power"

"The actress at the centre of the Strictly controversy is the best thing about this strangely pallid play at the Park Theatre"

"When It Happens to You is a play about a mother trying to hold her family together following a deeply traumatic event. The fact that the mother in this new production is played by Amanda Abbington gives the play an extra piquancy – but not one it quite deserves."

"... 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."

"While 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"

"Amanda Abbingdon gives a tremendous performance in this drama about a mother reckoning with an assault on her daughter"

"Amanda Abbington takes the lead to powerful effect"

"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."

"It's a shame, then, that the rest of the play too often feels disjointed. Like the neon outline of a cityscape that looms over the stage, the other characters are thinly drawn."

"You can feel the strain as the play seeks to cover a huge terrain in 90 minutes. Bond tries to flesh out its relationships by having the actors also wordlessly interact. But instead of building to a tapestry of lives, as is the play’s admirable intention, we’re left with snatched glimpses."

"Amanda Abbington cries real tears"

"A gruelling true story of the impact of rape on a family would work better as memoir than theatre"

"She [Amanda Abbington] 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."

"Despite the import of the events recounted, Jez Bond’s underwhelming production makes it hard to care overmuch about the characters, as Esme drinks too much to mask her pain and slowly spirals out of control, while Tara herself makes some perplexingly rash decisions."

"Abbington masters a slick American delivery in that particular tone which sounds strangely nonchalant on this side of the Atlantic; it’s a way of speaking beloved of would-be hard-bitten characters in dramas. Tara offers a powerful reveal at the end, which results in Abbington’s tears."

"A gentle role for Amanda Abbington after the Strictly scandal? Think again …"

"The actress stars in a searing drama about the aftermath of a sex attack and the indignities that rape victims suffer"

"Such tough material demands confident performances and each of the four actors who tell this story rises to it. Abbington is warm, a touch brassy and totally stricken; Day is powerfully brittle, acidic and crushed; while Miles Molan and Tok Stephen provide ample support as Tara’s goofy, loveable brother and a tactless but well-intentioned detective. Jez Bond’s unfussy direction lets the heavy material breathe, but I wonder whether he could have been more ambitious with the staging. At times it felt like a read-through."

"Amanda Abbington stars in a mother’s memoir of her daughter’s rape"

"Tawni O’Dell’s raw, reflective account of real-life trauma is more diary than drama, making for an often jarring production"

"At its most powerful, the play captures a gulf of disconnection between parent and child that fleetingly recalls Abbington’s role in Florian Zeller’s The Son at the Kiln theatre in 2019. O’Dell focuses on the mother and daughter but also includes Esme’s brother Connor (Miles Molan) and a variety of supporting roles (played by Tok Stephen), with all four actors ever-present on stage."

"There is a surprising stream of humour throughout, bringing a certain verisimilitude of the fun and levity naturally found in family dynamics, but a crucial, palpable sense of familial bonds is absent."

"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."