by Danny Robins
Director Louise Holmes
Saturday 24th October 2026
“2.22” is very much a 21st century play having received its initial performances in August 2021, very much placing it in the post-Covid era. British writer Danny Robins was previously more of a comedy writer with his best known work (to me at least) probably the Radio 4 sitcom “The Cold Swedish Winter”. Whilst there are a lot of funny lines in this, it’s very much not a comedy.
My first experience of this was as recently as last May (2026) with the professional touring company appeared at the Grand Theatre in Wolverhampton. Sutton Arts are one of at least 3 amateur companies I know of in the greater West Midlands area that either have or will be performing this by the end of the year.
Perfectly timed by Sutton Arts here in that the production was due to end on Hallowe’en night!
The action takes place in a London studio apartment, with the events all taking place on the same night meaning that apart from a prologue scene there is not much in the way of scene or costume changes.
There was an effective use of space in this production. We had a living room and kitchen area, the latter with a raised platform at the back where all the appliances were, as were the patio doors leading into the outer area.
Furnishings were very much appropriate to the setting and enhanced the performances as nothing was there that seemed out of place.
There was one point in the production where the four characters were sat around the kitchen table and their positioning meant that Sam was blocking Jenny at one point, which is something that the team needed to be aware of, especially when lines are being delivered.
I did like the use of the display screens around the stage showing the passage of time, and indeed this even made its way into the foyer as it counted down to “curtain up” time.
Having seen a previous production, I found myself looking for clues as to the final reveal and was pleased to see these seeded throughout the show. I’m obviously not going to spoil this for anyone likely to see a future production but these clues were very well done.
Lighting and sound were very effective in this production and very much added to the overall atmosphere. There was more than one “jump” throughout and this was enhanced by the very good use of the props, especially when a table moved across the room.
This is a show that relies on atmosphere, and here we were not disappointed as the tension mounted as we approached the fateful 2.22am (I think it was Ed Sheeran who once sang “Nothing happens after 2” but this has proved him wrong!)
We had a good selection of contemporary costumes – Jenny’s colourful flowery dress making a good contrast to Lauren’s darker outfit, with Sam’s check shirt markedly different to Ben’s plain white one.
The cast all worked together very well and apart from the one blocking incident I referred to earlier, their interactions were all tightly co-ordinated being both appropriate and believable.
There is a lot of drinking in this play and I was very pleased to observe that no one appeared to be drinking out of an empty cup or glass.
This is the second time I have seen this play and on each occasion I’ve been curious as to why the character of Lauren is played with an American accent. Whilst this may be the character description, I didn’t spot anything in the dialogue which tied the character to that so could easily have been played with the actor’s natural voice. That said, Beck Dudley did quite a good job in maintaining the accent, I seem to recall it only wavering on one occasion early on, and it was far more credible than the one adapted by (famously Lancastian) Natalie Casey in the other version, so well done on that count.
Having mentioned the cast, none of them could be faulted in regards to this production. The aforementioned Beck gave us a very subtle performance in a role that is essentially a catalyst, but in the same way is also pivotal in moving the story along.
Sammi Kelly-Griggs gave us a good range of emotions in the role of Jenny as she becomes more and more heightened as the story progressed.
Kieran Jenkins gave as a subtly nuanced performance in his role as the psychic sceptic Sam, with a lot of effective use of appropriate gestures as an enhancement.
Last but not least was Dexter Whitehead in the role of Ben, who played well against the rest of the team and helped to bring out the relationship between the characters.
Overall, this was an excellent evening with an efficient cast enhanced by the work of the backstage team who ensured that we were all getting the shocks in the right places. Well done to everyone involved.
Reviewed by – David G.
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