My Mother Said I Never Should (Student Editions)

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Charlotte Keatley studied drama at the Victoria University of Manchester and as a postgraduate at the University of Leeds. The play is rightly highly regarded, being both powerful and moving, and this production was wonderfully acted. Spanning the late twenties to the 1980s, the changes in the lives of women and girls is examined, in particular the expectations placed upon them by others, principally by their mothers, and then the men who are part of their adult lives.

Just consider how much it has moved on again since the play first saw the light of day at the Contact Theatre in Manchester in the “uncomplicated” days of 1987. It also features scenes set in "the wasteground", where the four characters play together as their child selves in their own contemporary costumes. They show disgust for the idea of little girls being made of 'sugar and spice and all things nice' and then put forth the idea of 'killing their Mummy'.The well laid out informative programme told us that she had been steeped in theatre, seeing about 250 plays annually in her role as a critic. Liberated from their relationship to men, this is a provocative exploration of the formation of the female identity in conflict with the sweeping social changes of 20th century England. There’s simple repeated motifs, such as the movement from ‘mummy’ to ‘mum’ to ‘mother’ to a first name, and the solitaire board that becomes a metaphor for winning at life by being an individual.

It’s both a staging of deaf experience and a demonstration of how often our attempts to connect go awry. Following the complex interconnected lives of four generations of women, the play gives us an emotional insight into the generational experiences and expectations which can divide and unite us. As Keatley rightfully highlights, this play is not concerned with “women being super detectives or political heroines, but the less visible way in which women really can change society”.The performers skilfully navigate Keatley’s nonlinear chronology, but Draper’s production somewhat clunkily indicates the shifts in time with era-appropriate album covers shown on a screen above the stage – for the Sex Pistols and Madonna – accompanied by the corresponding music. Katie Brayben, Olivier Award winner last year for her performance as Carole King in Beautiful, plays Jackie, and manages to portray a wild child of the sixties to a mother parted from her daughter and the complexities of changing emotions and relationships.

This was another wonderful performance, with an intensity of angry bewilderment at the way of things, attempting to repair relations with her own mother but closing doors on her daughter. It explores the lives and relationships of four generations of women - their loves, expectations and choices, set against the social changes of the 20thC, with themes of independence, growing up and consequences of secrets. Charlotte Keatley's play is a wry look at the ever-turning mother-child relationship providing in the process a marvellous challenge for four actresses. It’s really about the Larkin truism that “they f*** you up your mum and dad, they may not mean to but they do… ’ but it improves it.he dialogue lea%es you eeling uncertain and up in the air about things without any sense o conclusion. The production is particularly impressive in that the set, costumes, props and equipment all needed to be assembled in a matter of weeks, after a devastating fire at the production’s storage facility destroyed the originals. Her only daughter, Margaret inherits some of those values but is freer to build a career of her own, Margaret’s daughter, Jackie, takes liberation a stage further, but, after an unplanned pregnancy in 1969, she hands her baby daughter, Rosie, to her mother to bring up as her own.

It's about debts and responsibilities; the grim burden of puritan inheritance; and how it takes generations to learn about the value of real feeling. When Jackie becomes pregnant at 18 and has baby Rosie, a decision is made that will affect all their lives irrevocably. Her daughter, Margaret, vows never to have children, but soon finds herself juggling motherhood and work. There’s even a bare tree with a laced pair of trainers dangling from the upper branches as though JD Sports were sponsoring Waiting For Godot.

Much is left unsaid between the four women, and this gives extra weight to the climactic scene between Jackie and Rosie, when the truth of their relationship is finally revealed and Jackie bares her soul in a heart-breaking desperate speech. SA – Obviously the play has already been in previews, I wonder what audiences have made of the play and what feedback you’ve both been getting from them?