'Pins and Needles' review – Rob Drummond interrogates vaccine conspiracies in this prickly quest for the truth

Read our review of knotty new play Pins and Needles, directed by Amit Sharma, now in performances at the Kiln Theatre to 26 October.

At first glance, Rob Drummond's play Pins and Needles is about vaccines. But, underneath all the facts, figures and history, it reveals itself to contend with the innately human quest for truth. Over the course of 12 years, Drummond pieces together scraps of information, conversation and interviews to make what we see in the theatre now.

He swears everything is verbatim and true. “I don’t have an angle,” he says. But how can we believe this when we know one of the interviews Pins and Needles relies on is completely imagined, he’s edited the material, and his own personal ideology is bound to come into play?

A sense of uncertainty bubbles underneath this introspective analysis into vaccines throughout the ages. Drummond speaks to Mary (Vivienne Acheampong) a mother who wrongly placed her faith in Andrew Wakefield’s now debunked 1998 study which linked the MMR jab to autism, and Robert (Brian Vernel), an anti-vaxxer reeling after his mother died shortly after receiving the Pfizer vaccination during the Covid pandemic. Acheampong looks broken as she tells Mary’s story, and Vernel burns with rage as Robert.

The trio of interviews is completed by a conversation with the father of inoculation, Edward Jenner (a sprightly Richard Cant), who in the 18th century came up with the smallpox vaccination and rolled out a programme of clinical trials.

These interviews are laced together by theme and concept in this simply directed production by Amit Sharma, staged on a blue-and-red playground set. The characters rarely interact with each other, but side by side, they present a varied and full examination into the wonders and doubts associated with vaccinations.

Despite his repeated insistence that he doesn’t want to “insert himself” into the narrative, Drummond is onstage throughout, played by a calmly speaking Gavi Singh Chera, and his guiding hand is there in each scene. He selects the segments that make it into the final edit. Here, he is the ultimate higher power – much like the state or the highly paid scientists that his interviewees so detest.

Because of this, the transient nature of theatre is also pulled at. Back in 2012, when the Kiln Theatre was still the Tricycle and Drummond was in his early career as a playwright, he set out to write something that uncovered “the truth”. But, it is only now, 12 years later that the same story has found a place onstage.

“Sometimes it just doesn’t happen,” Drummond explains, referencing the changing times, finances and topicality. Is Pins and Needles the final result of years of consideration? Or, in light of the pandemic making vaccinations more relevant, just his chance to get his words seen?

Drummond does not shy away from these thorny areas and the play is at its strongest when it lets uncomfortable, conflicting opinions hang in the air. But, despite a cracker of a final scene, with so much information stuffed into its structure, the overall impact feels more like an overly tailored education than fluid drama.

Pins and Needles is at the Kiln Theatre to 26 October. Book Pins and Needles tickets on London Theatre.

Photo credit: Pins and Needles (Photos by Mark Senior)