one4review | On 28, Aug 2026

Michael Johnson’s Collateral Damage is a heart-searing portrait of a family shattered by tragedy and of three women attempting, in very different ways, to live with seemingly unbearable grief.

At the centre is Stacey, a mother whose life has imploded following the deaths of her husband and child. Unable to face the enormity of her loss, she has turned to alcohol, desperately trying to blot out the pain. Johnson’s hard-hitting script provides the foundation for a stand-out performance, capturing both Stacey’s self-destructive behaviour and the anguish beneath it.

Her daughter Alex (Erin Clarke) has responded to grief with anger. Devastated by her father’s death, she has recently been released from prison after attacking an acquaintance of his whom she blamed for the family’s misfortunes. Younger daughter Hayley (Charley Crooks), meanwhile, has taken an entirely different path. She has kept her head down, studied, qualified as a doctor and attempted to build a life beyond the family trauma. Now she finds herself caught between a drunken mother and an angry sister who refuse even to speak to one another.

The portrayal of grief in all its messy, contradictory forms is beautifully observed. Love, anger, guilt and resentment constantly jostle for position, and each woman’s pain feels painfully authentic.

For a moment, the resolution threatens to feel a little too neat, but any such concern is brutally obliterated by a devastating final scene.

Unfortunately, noise from the outside courtyard sometimes makes the dialogue difficult to hear. It is a frustrating distraction from an otherwise powerful, emotionally bruising piece of theatre.

****
Reviewed by Rona
TheSpace at Surgeons Hall
Until 29 August