Review: MUM, Soho Theatre
Photo credit: The Other Richard
A thrilling drama that delves unflinchingly into the ‘soft torture’ of motherhood.
Olivier Award winner Morgan Lloyd Malcolm has teamed up with the producers of the phenomenally successful Fleabag and Baby Reindeer on a new play described by the playwright as “a thriller about early motherhood”. The writer of Globe-to-West-End sensation Emilia certainly deserves renewed acclaim for this pacy and harrowing hour of unravelling anxiety that will make you want to cling to your mother’s soft breast and ask her simply and honestly “why, oh why, didn’t you have an abortion”.
Mum veers from the mothers-on-the-brink comedy of Motherland to a knotty court drama as new mum Nina’s first night away from baby takes a nightmarish turn.
Mum not only centres the mother in this narrative, but presents three contrasting portraits of motherhood. Sophie Melville gives a white-knuckle performance as Nina, wild-eyed and grinning through her exhaustion; while Denise Black alternates effectively between the overly-involved and hardy mother-in-law who approaches traditional gender roles with a grating sense of blitz spirit, and Nina’s own mother who confesses to her own reluctant motherhood with brutal honesty.
Cat Simmons completes the cast as Jacqui, making a good job of what could be seen as a bit of a filler role. That being said, Simmons leaps with dexterity and authority into a variety of roles that give voice to The System, representing the NHS, social care and courts. She inhabits the world of shirts, ties and lanyards where Nina cannot see beyond her reality of loungewear and breast pumps.
The wordless language of love, fear and exhaustion is choreographed with poetic brevity by movement director Annie-Lunnette Deakin-Foster in beats of physical theatre punctuating Lloyd Malcolm’s monologues.
A giant mobile hangs with blue clouds and forms the centrepiece of Anna Clock’s clever design. Together with Melville’s tightly-wound performance, the inexorable revolution of this looming structure marches the play onto its shocking conclusion.
Clock’s design is complemented by Sally Ferguson’s elegant lighting, which submerges the audience in a sea of blue and subtly clues the audience into some of the narrative plot twists.
Lloyd Malcolm and director Abigail Graham have keyed into a universal dependency, perhaps felt especially keenly now in a world bonded by collective trauma. We are often encouraged to ask for help, from the social care system, friends, partners, God…and the ultimate and final recourse of everyone: mum. But since our society is so weighted towards the interests of children and dependents, who is taking care to mother our mothers? This agonising codependency creates a delicious tension in this unmissable new play.
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett
Mum plays at Soho Theatre until 20 November. To book tickets, please click here.