Camden Fringe Review: Love vs Fear and My Mother’s Prayers, ★★★★

Love vs Fear and My Mother’s Prayers successfully blends computer games into the story of 20-something Kike and her search for love

Computer games can be regarded by some as solitary anti-social experiences that trap you at home and reduce your need to be out and about experiencing the real world. It was exciting then that Love vs Fear and My Mother’s Prayers, promising the integrated use of computer games within the show, was inviting us to leave our solitary games at home and come and play together. I was interested to see whether the games felt integral to the show or like a bolted add-on. What I experienced showed me that I was asking the wrong question entirely.

Theatre is a social experience but it is a social experience generally undertaken in silence. Audiences are together in a shared space, but are not expected to converse. The pleasure one might have in discussing the plot or predicting next steps, as one might do when watching telly with your family at home, is generally frowned on. What is revolutionary about Bunmi Aworanti‘s approach is that her games not only get the audience involved but they get the audience talking. Asked, as the show progresses, about Kike’s choices and motivations, we could get an instant sense check of what everyone in the audience felt. Given the chance to score points for the right course of action, the audience were tapping away with verve and determination. Everyone felt deeply invested in Kike’s fate.

This opportunity to have one’s say broke down barriers in other ways. I am not Nigerian and my neighbours, who were Nigerians much younger than me, were soon making sure there were no plot points that I was missing. It was one of the more united and integrated audiences I have experienced, the games made us feel we were all in it together.

The games fit into the framework of the play for three reasons. The first is that Aworanti has programmed them herself so that they match exactly to what the audience may wish to comment on at that point in the show. The second is that the performance is explicitly divided into game playing time and watching time. Actor Damilola Turner pauses, the screen comes down, the game is played / chat is had. When the screen rises again, it is clear we are back in a traditional play-watching environment. This delineation sets audience expectations clearly and Turner never had anything less than full audience focus.

The third reason is that, outside of the games, Love vs Fear and My Mother’s Prayers, is a story worth telling. Kike is a young Nigerian woman, living away from her mother, having trouble navigating love and finding her worth. This is a one-woman-show and Damilola Turner is someone we all root for as her mum tells her to find stability and Adam and Jay offer two available choices, each imperfect in their own ways.

In addition to Kike, Turner acts as both her mother and her Aunty Bim and is skilled at making each character distinct. Aunty Bim, in particular, is hilarious with her views on how to choose and “build a man”. Her mother is more nuanced, at first seeming narrowly god-fearing in her viewpoint, but ultimately it is clear how much she wants the best for Kike.

Turner captured the mother-daughter relationship with affection and exasperation. “Kiiii-keh!” her mother would say and every daughter in the audience could not help but think of the way their own mother emphasises their name when some kind of remonstration is coming next.

By the end of this show, we all really care for Kike. It was completely satisfying then to be able to vote for her future. There were a few teething problems with sound on the night I went, but this was their first night and they were fixed even as the show was running so are unlikely to recur over the rest of the run.

Love vs Fear and My Mother’s Prayers is exactly what fringe theatre should be. It is playful, experimenting with form and tells us a story which enlightens us to some things culturally specific but also reminds us just how much we have in common. Make sure your phone is charged and head along.

Read our interview with the team here.

[Thank you to mudhut.io who provided a gifted ticket for an honest review.]

BOOKING DETAILS

Love vs Fears and My Mother’s Prayers continues at the SPID theatre each night at 7:30 pm until 16th August 2026, with matinees at 2:30 pm on 15th and 16th August.

It will also play at the Lambeth Fringe on Wednesday 30th September and Thursday 1st Oct at 7.30pm.

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