Review: How I Learned to Swim (Summerhall)

Sorrowful solo performance stays in the shallows

If this were just a show about learning to swim at the age of thirty, that would be scary enough on its own; the shallow end may as well be an ocean when you don’t know how to float. But playwright Somebody Jones’ one-woman show is about far more than learning your backstroke from your front stroke. When Jamie (Frankie Hart) starts lessons she is terrified, guilt-ridden, and hampered by a history of colonialism and segregation that has long prevented black people from learning to swim. Nevertheless, she is determined to swim before her brother Baz’s birthday.

This play goes in unexpected directions, but Hart handles it all gracefully. She captures that infantilised feeling of learning something “basic” late in life. She is a dignified, confident woman feeling like a little girl again, with every trauma, generational and personal, weighing on her as she steps into the water. But when the play becomes heavier and the plot becomes more prominent, she struggles to stay afloat. Sadly, this is mostly due to Jones’ writing. The dialogue is assured, but the serious turns in the script are jarring. After a difficult lesson, she mutters “I’ll never get him back” before changing the subject, spoiling any subtlety that could have been built upon, and it only gets worse as the play goes on.

Like the writing, the direction by Emma Jude Harris is slick and professional, but to a fault. It follows a tried-and-tested rhythm that comes across as almost cliché, boxing Hart’s performance into a familiar pattern. Without having seen many solo shows the average audience won’t notice anything amiss, but seasoned theatre-goers will be disappointed that more risks aren't taken with such a specific setting and story. Even so, the atmosphere is enough to plunge any audience member into Jamie’s journey. The score is rich, the set bears an uncanny resemblance to a swimming pool, and Hart’s performance (not only as Jamie but as her flirty masc teacher, her spiritual guide, and ultimately her maritime saviour) fills the space with life. It’s worth dipping a toe in, at least. Three stars.