Simon Ward reviews Corona Daze at The Hen and Chickens Theatre

I was working for a London hospital when news started to filter through about a new, potentially deadly, virus which was spreading across the globe. It seemed surreal to be sitting in a bland meeting room discussing the protocols which might need to be put in place. Over the next few weeks London became emptier and emptier as people voted with their feet and imposed their own virtual lockdowns before the government finally acted. Once lockdown proper had begun, the everyday normalities of life were upended in all sorts of ways. It is quite difficult to recall the details – the boredom, the designated exercise, the shopping for ‘essentials’.

Conceived during the first lockdown of spring 2020, this one woman play, co-written and performed by Alice Bragg, takes us right back to the beginning. Recordings of Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock instructing the nation to remain at home still have a spooky power, everything we now know about ‘partygate’ notwithstanding. (Dean Moore’s sound design, executed by technician Joshua Barber, is excellent throughout, perfectly rendering the mobile phone pings and the voices off of husband and kids, as well as the politicians’ pronouncements.)

Together with co-writer and collaborator Lucie Capel, and under the direction of Benji Sperring, Alice Bragg throws us into the world of Nicky Parsons, a married estate agent with two young daughters, Flora and India, as the whole family is suddenly forced to spend every waking moment together. In a series of Skype calls with her mum, who is luckily highly tech-savvy, Nicky relates the descent of her life into chaos.

The show is good at reminding us of all those details which have become vague over time – when everything had to be sanitised and shopping shouldn’t be touched for twenty-four hours, the weekly clap for the NHS, the home-schooling, the Joe Wickes videos, the pasta jewellery, the sourdough and banana bread baking, the crazy purchases – curried beans anyone? And it touches on the particular challenges for children denied their normal outlets – Flora is a competitive swimmer and gets in trouble for breaking into a local pool. Nicky herself is first furloughed, then loses her job – a pattern many people will recognise. Thus the husband is now the only breadwinner, putting even more pressure on Nicky to make sure the kids are perfect, or at least appear perfect in the WhatsApp groups.

Nicky’s initial frantic determination to make the best of everything and to take this challenge in her stride is hilariously done – there will be few audience members who won’t recognise the feeling. And her dawning realisation that it is going be horrible and an endlessly drawn out sequence of one-damn-thing-after-another also raises a laugh. Humorous as it is, though, there is a lack of development. It was a mad time in reality, so it felt as if the neighbours, the other parents at school, the kids and their friends needed to go even further. Even Mum, with her ‘gins by the bins’ rule-breaking, could have grown into something more shocking.

The evening concludes as Nicky is appearing on Question Time via Zoom with the obligatory well-stocked bookcase (or wallpaper) in the background. The questions she raises about the mental health impacts of the pandemic, especially on young people, remind us that, for all the comedy, we still living with the consequences of those strange times.

Corona Daze runs at The Hen and Chickens Theatre, 109 St Paul’s Road, London N1 2NA until 25th April and from 19th to 25th May