York Theatre Royal – until 24th November 2018.
Reviewed by Michelle Richardson
3***
My Mother Said I Never Should is a play by Charlotte Keatley written in 1985 and first performed in 1987. London Classic Theatre are staging this tour and is now playing at York Theatre Royal until this Saturday.
This play is about the different generations in one family, all female, and the intricacies within their relationships with one another. It moves back and forth through the lives of four women, and sets the enormous social changes of the twentieth century against the desire to love and to be loved, Doris (Carole Dance), her daughter Margaret (Connie Walker), granddaughter Jackie (Kathryn Ritchie) and great granddaughter Rosie (Felicity Houlbrooke), though until near the end of the play the latter believed herself to be Jackie’s sister, not daughter.
Set in the North West over several decades. We first get to meet all four characters as children playing on some waste land reciting a rhyme, before seeing this production I mentioned it to a work colleague and she rattled off this same old rhyme that I had never heard of. Doris being the youngest child, even though she is really the great grandmother. All the cast play different aged versions of their characters. All this jumping backwards and forwards through time, plus their ages occasionally being out of sync, was a bit confusing at times as there appeared no rationale be it.
We get to learn that Doris is caught up in a loveless marriage to Jack, Margaret is unhappy, with her husband eventually leaving her, Jackie has a baby and is unable to cope so hands it over to her mother Margaret, who she has a tempestuous relationship with, on the understanding that Rosie knows nothing about her parentage until she is at least 16. The play looks at the consequences of this secret and how it affects each of them. It ends where it should have begun, with Doris in the 1920’s.
Like I have mentioned before the whole chronology of the piece was very confusing leaping all over the place and I found it hard to get over that fact. All four actors worked hard in their roles, couldn’t have been easy swapping and changing timelines.
The main themes of the play are relationships and motherhood. It addresses the issues of teenage pregnancy, careers for women and disappointment in men, and how and if, the different generations break free from their parents’ traditions and culture. If you are a mother or daughter, I’m sure you will find some aspects strike a chord.