Maia Kahn
They say love is a losing game. Bunmi Aworanti’s one-woman play Love vs. Fear (and my mother’s prayers), which features interactive phone games in the style of Kahoot or Jackbox, promises that the audience has the chance to redirect that fate for the main character. And while the innovative structure does provide some fun and insightful moments, ultimately the two elements fail to cohere, with neither part reaching its desired effect.
Kike (Estelle Uba) is a bubbly woman in her mid-twenties navigating the contemporary dating scene. On one hand, she has her new beau Jay, who seems too good to be true. She also can’t seem to escape Adam, her ex, who cheated but managed to charm Kike’s ultra-religious Nigerian mother.
The retro-style games, designed by Aworanti and Scott Erinle, add a creative, exciting and often funny dimension to the show, with rounds that invite the audience to give their own input in a poll about love, or build a virtual bae that will win the approval of Kike’s mother. Unfortunately, the drama in between the games is lacking. Jay has no apparent redeemable qualities: he’s dismissive of Kike’s desires, makes fun of her culture, says “I love you” first and immediately reverts back to not wanting anything serious, and strings our hero along as he waffles at applying himself in life. This gap where a person should be exposes a wider problem with the play, which is that the characters don’t offer much other than their on-page roles as Boyfriend, Ex, Mother, Best Friend, Aunt, etc. They’re portrayed in voiceover lines that feel stilted against Uba’s performance, which is earnest but can’t even apply much specificity to Kike herself, who recounts most of the plot in first-person narration that lacks literary texture.
The play’s timeline also lurches forward with little rhyme or reason; months and years pass in the blink of an eye, with no specific snapshots that might paint Jay’s love as worth fighting for, making it only more baffling why Kike would stay in such a stagnant relationship for so long. Kike’s interactions with her parade of newly-engaged friends are generic. And despite some eye-catching costumes, the staging and direction have little variety. And once again, the games, which could provide the perfect vehicle for quirky Kike’s inner thoughts to manifest, as they do in the lovely production poster, have no real bearing on what happens, which after a while makes them feel inconsequential. The ending is sweet enough but would feel even more earned if it really was a choose-your-own-adventure situation.
Love vs. Fear… has a lot of potential, a unique theatregoing experience with a charming message of choosing self-empowerment. As it is now, the playtext is in danger of leaving the audience reaching for their phones. With some formal rigour , it could combine these two modes into something truly new.
Piña Colada
Love vs Fear (…and my mother’s prayers)
Performance Dates- Sat 7 Nov 2026
Everyone knows Kike. Some of us **are** Kike. In her 20s and dating in London, Kike is juggling love, family expectations and the suspicion that everyone is getting married except her. Then there’s her mum,…
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