When It Happens to You review – Amanda Abbington stars in a mother’s memoir of her daughter’s rape

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

When her daughter was raped, novelist Tawni O’Dell felt that her maternal promise to protect her had been broken. In the following months, their relationship deteriorated as each attempted to find their own way through trauma. O’Dell wrote the “theatrical memoir” When It Happens to You as part of that process and, although not an actor, she performed in its off-Broadway production in 2019.

In the play’s European premiere, Amanda Abbington takes the role of the mother, named Tara, and Rosie Day is the daughter, Esme. 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.

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