Written by James Piercy and directed by Karan Maini, Teepee Productions’ Every Little Knot candidly examines what support and understanding can be found from family and what can’t. It also shows how even with decades of shared history, the relationship of sisters can be frayed because of their respective ‘blind spots’.

Jo (Rachel Hassett) lives with her younger sister Abbie (Natasha Faye Sandhu), her five-year-old nephew and Abbie’s boyfriend, Joel. Jo is critical of her sister for staying with a man who is physically abusive at times. However, it doesn’t stop Jo from requesting drugs from Joel on a semi-regular basis, as a ‘pick me up’ for when she goes out clubbing.

Early on, the play also shows Jo attending drugs counselling (to which she is resistant). This brings us to the narrative structure of the play. While the ambiguous order of Jo’s timeline at first appears ‘innocuous’, its importance is later apparent as the undercurrent motives of the sisters shape the audience’s understanding of the play’s conclusion.

If the ying/yang relationship of the sisters was precarious to begin with, the arrival of Nidhi (Rupinder Kaur Waraich) in their lives inadvertently strains their relationship further. Following a traumatic robbery at the local ‘corner shop’, shopkeeper Nidhi strikes up a friendship with Abbie, who was on the premises when the incident occurred. But if having a friendship with someone ‘relatively normal’ makes Abbie less tolerant of Jo’s ‘standard’ behaviour, Jo ‘leans into’ being ‘bad’ as a passive-aggressive way of showing her displeasure.

Jo’s ‘carefree’ disposition is at times very funny and almost enviable with not caring with what people think of her. However, it has to be said that living with someone who does that ‘day in, day out’ would be tiresome in the long run and there would be consequences.

We see in Nidhi and Abbie that despite their different cultural backgrounds, there are similarities between them in that they want more out of life and would love to go travelling, but to some degree their options are dependent on the action of others. But while Nidhi lives a happy, if fairly sheltered existence, Abbie’s acquiescence should perhaps not be mistaken for naivety…

By the end of Every Little Knot, one realises that the play subverts expectations and highlights that everyone is capable of making sacrifices for others. Conversely, the play also shows that people sometimes do questionable things to serve ‘the greater good’…

© Michael Davis 2025

Every Little Knot ran at the Blue Orange Theatre on 23rd and 24th July as part of the Birmingham [Performing Arts Fringe] Fest.