Spin at Arcola Theatre

Spin is a one-woman show, written and performed by Kate Sumpter. It comes to Arcola Theatre in East London after a well-received debut in Edinburgh last year. Sumpter plays an aspiring spin instructor, all precision Lycra and terrifying pep, “relentless crushing optimism” as she calls it. She’s pedalling for the perfect life (read: body, as the two are interchangeable right? Right?!) and nothing’s going to get in her way. The entire 65-minute show is performed on and around a spin bike, most of it while pedalling furiously, displaying a level of competence at multi-tasking of which most can only dream. Some of us struggle with drinking a coffee while also being on a bus.

The staging is simple but effective: a lot is done with sound and light design. The protagonist, Claire, tells the audience she wants to audition to be an instructor for the top spin class company. She is a wobbling Jenga tower of shrill, bought-in confidence with roaring undercurrents of self-hatred. Sumpter makes her both frightening and, at times, sympathetic; we see that the harshness with which she treats herself and others is something she has absorbed from her mother and society as a whole. She accuses the audience of judging her body as either too fat or too thin, which is a projection: her body is phenomenal. She longs to be the two most aspirational traits for a woman in the Western world: thin and blonde. As she reveals being bullied at school for being bigger, we understand the drive a bit more. She describes playing in the attic with her only friend, her little sister, as though that were pathetic when it sounds idyllic – a play world of imagination before a hellish absorbed compulsion for perfection invaded.

Sumpter’s script has humour along with trenchant observations. At one point, a heavenly reprieve of mac ‘n’ cheese adorably trundles in on a remote-controlled car. She describes gym archetypes: the woman in yoga pants with a ruched arse crack posing for selfies to masturbate to later; the bro pumping away the need to admit he has feelings. She notes that the best way to learn who someone is, is by watching them exercise, as you can see the gap between who they are and who they think they are, which is an interesting point.

Encapsulated in an anguished voicemail to her mother towards the end, the play is an intense and neat dissection of capitalism’s functional, comprehensive and lifelong divesting of ourselves from any comfort with our bodies. A contented person is an inadequate consumer. She describes how capitalism inserts itself between us and our relationship with our bodies at a very young age. Our society misattributes attractiveness to morality. As shown when Claire describes being told by an instructor that a low bun made her look “too serious”, our society also makes frankly ridiculous judgments based on the slightest of trivialities (see also, big hoop earrings mean you are poor and promiscuous, and so on). A spin class, to the uninitiated, is mystifying and the perfect metaphor for the experience of capitalism for the 99.9%: no matter how hard you pedal, you get nowhere.

Sumpter is faultless in her commitment and the play wrestles with some confronting ideas in an observant and contemporary way.

Jessica Wall

Spin is at Arcola Theatre from 9^th until 20^th January 2024. For further information or to book visit the theatre’s website here.

Watch the trailer for Spin here: