Review: The White Chip, Southwark Playhouse

At a first AA meeting, with 24 hours of sobriety or simply the intent to become sober, you get a white chip. Steven (Ed Coleman) has a collection of these. The White Chip by Sean Daniels is an autobiographical story of alcoholism, debuting in London after several US runs. The play cuts close to the bone. More than once I could see a friend… a former friend … who had a significant drinking problem, clear as day on stage in front of me.

Steven’s career is going well – more than well – he’s a successful theatre director, lined up for his dream job. There is just one problem: Steven has always liked a drink. It brought car crashes, arrests and youthful incidents, which were written off as minor. Then came day drinking, then all-day drinking. Convinced no one can see this, Steven just carries on. Daniels’ script weaves in humour not just in the scrapes Steven lands in, but in how the whole story is told, keeping what could be a grim subject feeling sharp, honest, and painfully human. There is a self-awareness in the writing that lets the story go down without sugarcoating it for the audience.

Coleman is excellent. It’s a full-on performance, to which he brings a manic energy, the sort you’d expect from someone riding the high of totally drunk false confidence. But crucially, Coleman nails the come-downs too; the shame, the emptiness, the cracks forming and growing larger. It’s not just a portrait of addiction, it’s a study of denial creeping to the front and the fear of being discovered. Coleman’s performance and Daniels’ writing also combine superbly to show us Steven’s charm, keeping our interest and our hope that he might find a way to stop collecting white chips.

Mara Allen and Ashlee Irish multi-role throughout, playing every other character, from voices in Steven’s head to his parents, theatre colleagues, sponsors and concerned friends. Their presence is seamless, their shifts quick, and they bring a physical and disorienting presence that mirrors Steven’s inner chaos as they often circle around and around.

Director Matt Ryan uses this and more to keep the pace breathless. Scenes blur into each other with barely a beat, capturing the forward rush of a life drunkenly spiralling but still a way from crashing. It’s non-stop. There’s a frantic energy that mimics the whirlwind of Steven’s drinking years. He might black out, but there are no blackouts for us. Ryan expertly uses this rhythm to show Steven’s life speeding up as it’s falling.

Lighting, by Jamie Platt, brings us from party to party (even if the party is only inside Steven’s head) and then to the brutal glaring artificial fluorescent lights of an AA meeting. That contrast feels clinical, almost surgical. No shadows. Nowhere to hide and it really pulls the audience closer to Steven’s exposed reality.

The White Chip doesn’t apologise for itself. It doesn’t ask for pity. It asks for our attention. It knows that recovery isn’t a tidy arc or a single epiphany or necessarily tied to a religious higher power like those famous 12 steps. And it doesn’t preach, it just tells the truth, Steven’s truth and Sean Daniels’ truth, often with a laugh and sometimes with a gut punch. Knowing this is Daniels’ own true story adds weight to every moment; it’s not just a story, it’s how he made it through.

The White Chip reminds us that it’s people with the drinking problem who leave, not their friends. I kept thinking of mine. I wonder where he is now and if he got help. I wonder how many white chips might be in his pocket and I hope that one day he might see this play.

Written by: Sean Daniels
Directed by: Matt Ryan
Set And Costume Design by: Lee Newby
Lighting Design by: Jamie Platt
Sound Design by: Max Pappenheim

The White Chip plays at Southwark Playhouse until Saturday 16 August.