[AD- I was invited to review and I received a complimentary ticket to attend]

I always enjoy it when I end up seeing something I wasn’t expecting to see, or which wasn’t on my radar. Seeing as I’ve never been to the Tristan Bates Theatre before, that was exactly the case with this play.

‘Grip’ is the story of a young guy called Trev (played by writer, Scott Howland), who’s living with his father following the death of his mother. It starts out with the whole cast on stage displaying exaggerated behavioural tics, and then they melt away to the side of the stage. Trev displays fairly typical teenage behaviour, including telling his father he’s going travelling, which leads to what I thought was the best line of the whole play ‘you’re getting one of those ‘millennial running-away-from-your-responsibilities’ packages!’ But before any of that can happen, Trev meets Louise in a club…and everything starts to unravel…

I don’t want to give too much of the story away so I’m not going to say much more. But what I will say is that this play is an impressively zeitgeisty look at the important topic of mental health, and how quickly something or someone can fall apart.

Overall: this is a fascinating play performed by a very talented cast. Well worth a watch.