Eureka Day - Nottingham Playhouse Review

★★★★☆

Set in a liberal Californian private school that prides itself on tolerance, inclusivity, and community, Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day has lost none of its relevance since its 2018 debut. Vaccines are still a hot topic, and misinformation, virtue signalling, and the search for moral high ground are certainly as prevalent as ever. So, with a play about American vaccine politics, does Eureka Day strike the same nerve with a British audience — or does its satire get lost in translation?

Matt Gavan, Jenna Russell, Adele James, Jonathan Coy, and Kirsty Rider. Photo by Pamela Raith.

The play is about a group of school board members whose progressive unity is shattered when a mumps outbreak forces them to decide whether vaccinations should be mandatory. What begins as an earnest discussion of ethics and inclusivity quickly unravels into ideological warfare, exposing hypocrisy, fragility, and the limits of liberal tolerance. It’s a witty and biting social commentary that holds a mirror up to its audience without preaching, reminding us that even the most open-minded communities can become echo chambers when personal belief trumps collective sense.

Eleanor Field’s set design is immediately evocative, a perfect blend of primary school nostalgia and social satire. The moment the audience enters, we are transported into a Californian school environment, the pastel-painted walls, laminated labels, and display boards of students' paintings all speak to a place obsessed with being “nurturing” and “inclusive”. The attention to detail gives the production instant credibility. It also provides a delicious irony: this cheerful, rainbow-painted world becomes the battleground for an extremely divisive and non-inclusive debate.

Director James Grieve manages to balance absurd humour with moments of uncomfortable tension with panache. It’s a tricky dance, part satire, part social dissection, and while Eureka Day is billed as a comedy, it feels more like a thought-provoking social/political drama with some brilliant comedy elements.

Matt Gavan, Jenna Russell, Adele James, and Jonathan Coy. Photo by Pamela Raith.

At the heart of this ensemble is Jenna Russell as Suzanne, the sanctimonious matriarch of the school board and the kind of parent who can turn even the simplest meeting into a moral crusade. Russell captures this with immaculate precision; her clipped diction, thoughtful pauses, and performative empathy instantly create a character that feels both infuriatingly familiar and painfully real. Suzanne begins as the sort of mother you’d desperately avoid at the school gates, yet Russell makes her transformation midway through the play genuinely heartbreaking. The gut-punching shift from superiority to vulnerability reveals the deep humanity beneath the facade, and it’s one of the evening’s most affecting performances.

Adele James shines as Carina, the voice of reason amid the chaos. James’ performance is sharp, poised, and perfectly calibrated for the British audience. Carina’s exasperation is ours; her biting side-eye and deadpan delivery are incredibly executed. There’s something satisfying about watching James navigate the minefield of liberalism with intelligence, especially as she is the moral anchor of the piece. In a room full of people obsessed with being heard, she’s the only one interested in the truth, and James makes that integrity magnetic.

Jonathan Coy brings warmth and wonderful comic subtlety to Don, the board's long-standing chair. Coy has a natural ability to charm an audience, and here he plays the role of the well-meaning peacemaker to perfection. His Don is a man who believes every problem can be solved with a smile, a group hug, and perhaps a quote from Rumi. It’s an endlessly watchable performance, and worth watching for Coy’s final line of the show—an addition to the script that pokes fun at the coming year, 2019/2020.

The cast of Eureka Day. Photo by Pamela Raith.

Meanwhile, Matt Gavan infuses Eli, the stay-at-home dad, with Silicon Valley swagger and a heart full of contradictions. Gavan’s performance crackles with energy; he’s all quick talk and restless movement, the kind of person who can’t sit still because stillness might mean reflection. Yet when he finally does stop, the silence speaks volumes. His still, understated scene midway through the play, where a simple act like eating an apple becomes loaded with emotion, shows a performer in full control of tone and timing. Gavan’s Eli is not an easy man to like, but he’s impossible not to watch.

Kirsty Rider’s Meiko offers a fascinating contrast. Initially a poised and restrained knitter, Rider plays Meiko with quiet conviction; her transformation across the play is the most pronounced of all the characters. While her romantic connection with Eli wasn’t entirely convincing, her quieter scenes, particularly in the hospital, reveal a rawness and authenticity that make her journey compelling. Rider’s best moments are when she does less, when the contemplation between her words carries the weight of her conflict.

The production’s design elements reinforce the play’s satirical edge. Matt Powell’s video design deserves particular praise for the now-infamous “Zoom meeting” scene, a sequence that brilliantly recreates the absurdity of video calls. As the parent community erupts into chaos on a projected live feed, the stage becomes a symphony of emojis, thumbs-up icons, and digital outrage. It’s hysterically funny, painfully accurate, and uncomfortably familiar for anyone who’s endured a pandemic-era video call. Grieve directs this scene with deft precision, allowing the madness to build until it becomes both comedy gold and terrifyingly real.

Matt Gavan and Kirsty Rider. Photo by Pamela Raith.

The technical aspects are mostly understated, which feels like a conscious choice. Elliot Griggs’ lighting is functional; it serves the piece's realism but doesn’t push the storytelling. Similarly, Lee Affen’s sound design sits neatly within the production without ever demanding attention. Both choices work to the show’s advantage, though given the Playhouse’s recent reputation for bold technical design, one might have hoped for a slightly more daring approach here. Still, the simplicity ensures the focus remains where it should, on the characters and their spiralling absurdities.

If there’s a fault to be found, it’s in the rhythm of Spector’s dialogue. The characters frequently interrupt themselves, stop mid-sentence, and double back in an effort to sound considerate — a clever device to expose the performance of political correctness, but one that wears thin over time. When every character does it, the writing's texture becomes repetitive, and the pacing suffers. You begin to hear the writer's voice more than the character's, and that really breaks the play's immersion. Similarly, the show occasionally feels like it’s wrestling with its own identity: too serious to be a full-blown comedy, too ironic to be a straight drama. Yet perhaps that ambiguity is precisely the point; Eureka Day sits in the uneasy grey area where modern discourse so often lives.

As a piece of theatre, Eureka Day feels remarkably well-timed for a post-pandemic world still grappling with misinformation, division, and the fragility of “community.” It’s sharp, uncomfortable, and occasionally profound. And while the production isn’t flawless, it feels deeply human in its imperfections.

So, who is Eureka Day for? If you thrive on theatre that challenges polite conversation, that pokes fun at the hypocrisies of “good” people trying desperately to do the right thing, then this will be an evening well spent. It’s not a show of grand gestures or high drama, but rather a masterclass in subtle social dissection with some brilliant comedy moments.

Ultimately, Nottingham Playhouse’s Eureka Day is a triumph, a smart, sensitive, and often painfully funny production that exposes the fractures beneath our most well-meaning ideals. It holds a mirror up to our own polite chaos and dares us to ask: when it comes to tolerance, how much can we really handle before the gloves come off?