Review: Give Her My Love (Barons Court Theatre)

Review by Sam Woodward

⭐️⭐️ 

Breakups can make for great drama, especially when a play is less interested in who was right than in how two people end up hurting each other. Give Her My Love sets out to explore that messy space between staying and leaving, told through fragments of memory and conversation. There are thoughtful ideas here and flashes of real feeling, but it too often lacks the clarity and momentum it needs to make a real impact.

Written by Jake Hart and directed by Sorcha Harris, the play follows Ava and Dodi as their relationship comes apart across a series of monologues, conversations, and recollections. Set between London and County Mayo, it hopes to capture the emotional aftermath of a breakup not as one clean ending, but as something you replay, rethink, and relive.

That framework gives the play plenty to work with, especially in the way it resists easy answers about blame. Ava can be needy, volatile, and quietly controlling, while Dodi presents as softer and more devoted, but the script is most interesting when it lets both women be complicated at once. There is a genuine attempt here to sit in the grey area of love, where tenderness and cruelty can start to overlap.

The production is at its strongest when it gives space to Dión Di Maio’s Ava. It is a detailed, emotionally intelligent performance, full of expression and intent, and Di Maio holds your attention even when she is technically on the sidelines. A particularly smart touch is the way Ava continues to listen and react during Dodi’s monologues, as if she is still in the room, which deepens the sense that this relationship lingers long after it has ended. 

Ava is also the more sharply drawn figure on the page, written as someone both vulnerable and quietly manipulative, whose need for reassurance can slip into something more possessive. That moral complexity gives the play some bite, and it keeps you slightly off balance in a way that feels intentional. Dodi, by contrast, is positioned as devoted and kind, but she rarely gets the space to challenge Ava with the same force, which results in her character getting lost in key moments.

On a design level, the production makes strong use of its small scale. Barons Court Theatre suits the intimacy of the piece, and the simple set is quietly effective, with roses hanging overhead and floral motifs that return throughout the play in a way that feels purposeful. As the flowers arrive, fade, and finally wilt, the symbolism is clear without being overworked, and the lighting and music help shape the mood around the text. There are also some smart contemporary choices in the storytelling. The play uses phone calls and messages to underline absence and betrayal, and one recurring ringtone becomes its own kind of punctuation, cutting through scenes like a sudden jolt of pain. The presence of unseen figures such as Maeve and Gabby is another strong idea, giving both women someone to speak to, confess to, and imagine beyond the person in front of them. It is a simple device, but it adds a layer of theatricality that suits the piece.

The difficulty is that the production takes a while to find its footing. The opening section feels hesitant, with the rhythm and energy only settling after the first fifteen minutes or so, and in a short play, that early stretch matters. More significantly, the timeline becomes a constant obstacle. Scenes shift between past and present without clear theatrical markers, and with no changes in costume, tone, or staging to signal when we are, it is easy to lose track until the script spells it out.

Even when the play finds individual moments that land, it rarely feels like the story is moving forward. The scenes circle the same emotional territory without much sense that either woman is changing, learning, or even seeing the situation differently. By the time the ending arrives, it feels like a sudden stopping point rather than a deliberate open question, which leaves the piece without the strong ending it alludes to.

There is a version of Give Her My Love that could be genuinely affecting, but a slow start, structural confusion, and a lack of progression result in a play that does not earn its final moments. The intimate staging, contemporary touches, and moral ambiguity all point in an interesting direction, but Dión Di Maio’s strong performance alone cannot fill the substantial cracks. For all its promise, it is a play that gestures towards heartbreak more often than it delivers it.

Give Her My Love plays at Barons Court Theatre until 14th March. Tickets from https://www.baronscourttheatre.com/givehermylove 

Photos by Anna Clare Photography