Blanket Ban – Southwark Playhouse

Performing to a packed Southwark Playhouse audience on Tuesday night, writers and performers Davina Hamilton and Marta Vella open their one act show by extolling the virtues of their home country, Malta. And it sounds idyllic – 300 days of sunshine, beautiful beaches and coastline, jewel blue sea – which features as a recurring theme of beauty and power – delicious food and a friendly community spirit across the country. Ah, and it has – or had up until very recently – a blanket ban on abortion.

And so, the premise is set, with Hamilton and Vella breaking down the internal conflict they feel for a country they clearly love, with otherwise open and progressive views, taking such a stern, outdated position on abortion.

The piece has been well researched and uses a mix of first-person testimony and interviews, vignettes, news clips and dialogue to bring to life the severity of the plight faced by Maltese women dealing with unwanted or unplanned pregnancy. Work on the production started, we are told, in 2019. The situation in Malta was of course exacerbated by the Pandemic. With the country closing its borders, the option to travel for an abortion as so many women are forced to do – if indeed that was a financially viable option in the first place – was removed.

While I very much enjoyed the mix of media used to deliver the touching and at times heart-wrenching stories, I found Vella and Hamilton’s roles slightly confusing. Part narrator, part actress, part writer, part protestor, part tour-guide – I’m sorry to say it didn’t really work for me and I felt that the end product suffered as a result. It seemed that the piece was suffering from a kind of existential crisis; we’re watching a play about two women developing a play, and while the subject matter is absolutely worthy of the attention it felt that the performances were spread a bit too thinly. There was also a bit of an overreliance on shouting, which felt unnecessary as Vella and Hamilton are clearly incredibly passionate and fierce – their anger is evident – and they’ve gathered more than enough content to show us why.

The content they have gathered – a mix of interviews granted to them by Maltese women and news clips, including BBC coverage of a woman who suffered difficulties with her pregnancy while visiting Malta and ended up virtually imprisoned in hospital there – is handled with the utmost sensitivity. The stories shared sound like they belong elsewhere, not on the sunny island of Malta where we are tempted by holiday brochures. The injustice stings and the pair do a great job of juxtaposing carefree, happy Maltese life with this horrible reality. We wouldn’t have what we have now if people hadn’t been angry, they say – and these women are furious and ready to fight.

Did I love it as a play? I would be lying if I said I did. But this is some important work delivered by two smart women who are finding a way to channel their anger into something good – and for that they deserve to be heard.

Playing until 20th May, https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/blanket-ban/

Reviewer: Zoё Meeres

Reviewed 2nd May 2023

North West End UK Rating: ★★★