Review: Chewing Gum Dreams (Theatre503)

Review by Sam Waite

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Beginning as a graduation project, Michaela Coel’s Chewing Gum Dreams moved quickly from strength to strength, including a run at the National Theatre and a Channel 4 TV series. Returning to the London stage 14 years after its debut and 12 years since it was last performed, this production at Theatre503 marks the first time Chewing Gum Dreams has been performed by someone other than its now-award-winning playwright. But does the work pack the same punch more than a decade later, and without Coel front and centre?

Tracey Gordon is 14 years old and feeling ready to take on the world… except for when she isn’t, which is often. Over just shy of an hour with Tracey we’re taken through an eventful stretch of her life, where classroom revolution, schoolyard bullying, the morning after pill, and watching a friend fall victim to a much older man are just the tip of the iceberg. Teenagerdom being a never-smooth experience, Coel’s script has its characters jump from kindness to cruelty as quickly as the events of Tracey’s adolescence flit from schoolyard banter to outright trauma, all with that signature voice at its heart.

As old now as Tracey herself, the text is as dynamic as ever, blending the familiar and the shocking to explore the character’s never-dull life. Coel’s work walks this line between specificity and generality that it hasn’t aged a bit - yes, a 2026 audience may be a bit more sensitive to the fatphobia and colourism that litter the monologue, but it would be naive to assume children have become any less cruel. The disconcerting ease with which Tracey critiques a larger classmate’s body or calls her best friend’s older boyfriend, “the bad kind of mixed race,” make her harder to fully like, but all the more human for these faults.

The lone chair that formed the staging for Nadia Fall’s National Theatre run has been expanded on for this production, with Yimei Zhao’s set maintaining that vagueness and simplicity, but also helping to quickly remind us of a simple fact: Tracey, despite it all, is only a child. A tunnel, ladder, and mirror place us seemingly within a local park’s climbing frame, as if we have met up with our mate Tracey and she is regaling us with stories from life and school. The effect works nicely with the monologue structure of the show, not only reinforcing Tracey’s youth and lack of experience, but also supporting some of director Anthony Simpson-Pike’s choices.

Zhao’s deliberately minimal design work is matched by sound from Xana and lighting by Christopher Nairne. Both add to the sense of intimacy, as if we’re sat with Tracey inside a climbing frame as she acts out the dramas of recent weeks. Nairne’s lighting is particularly effective in the lone scene to take place outside of London, where a trip to Margate reinforces our little of the world our protagonist has seen, as she is bathed in the light of an unseen sunset. Xana, meanwhile, creates a gentle soundscape of both Tracey and co’s garage-heavy playlists, and moments of background noise so convincing that the intimacy of Theatre503 feels like an overstuffed classroom.

Simpson-Pike makes use of Zhao’s set from the get-go, with the idea that Tracey is meeting friends to debrief on recent events cemented as she enters crawling through the tunnel and climbs the ladder when grandiose moments call for the elevation. Most strikingly, with only one actor on stage, Simpson-Pike has some of the more intense conversations relived with Tracey facing centre-stage or into the audience, while her enraged best friend’s lines are directed to the mirror, as if Tracey is reliving them in real-time and reckoning with what they truly mean. Outside of these more intense moments, Simpson-Pike guides star Lauryn Ajufo more than capably through the character’s seemingly endless highs and lows, truly capturing that unique emotional spike that is being a teenager.

Ajufo captures that sense of youth remarkably well, so believably young that some of the more brazen moments come with additional shock factor. Mentioning in an interview for the production’s programme that she avoided clips of either the play or the Channel 4 series during the rehearsal process, she has created a Tracey entirely of her own, wisely sidestepping what came before. There’s a delicacy to Ajufo’s portrayal that makes it impossible to forget, even once the school uniform is swapped out for casual attire, that we are in the presence of a child who may not realise quite how much of what happens to her should never happen, to any child. The first performer to step into the role that launched Coel’s illustrious career, Lauryn Ajufo proves that the same part could be a proving ground for many young Black artists to come.

A character as deceptively simple yet beautifully layered as Tracey Gordon requires not only a committed performance, but a collaboration in the role’s creation. For this revival, Ajufo’s blend of brattiness and bravery is aided by movement director Theophils O. Bailey, who helps bring a teenager’s boundless energy and coy flirtations to life before our eyes, and voice coach Aundrea Fudge, who helps shore up her East London dialect. With Chewing Gum Dreams’ presentation as a solo monologue, there’s something particularly stirring in realising what a sense of collaboration, and of love for the material, has gone into shaping this first true remounting.

Landing somewhat more as a period piece than the as-it-happens commentary of its debut, Chewing Gum Dreams tackles subjects which are both universal enough and seemingly unchanging enough to still land firmly today. Standing once as a beacon of what was to come for Michaela Coel, the show now stands as proof of her undeniable legacy, as well as a breathtaking showcase for another up-and-comer in Lauryn Ajufo’s finely-tuned performance. The history is what invites us in, but the continued relevance is what grips from start to finish.

Chewing Gum Dreams plays at Theatre503 until October 17th

For tickets and information visit https://theatre503.com/whats-on/chewing-gum-dreams/

Note: Advance tickets are sold out, but details on how to join the waiting list and book tickets released as the run progresses can be found at the link above.

Photos by Ikin Yum