My Mother Said I never should: Theatre review

I went to the matinee of this a few weeks ago. It has taken me until now to write a review of it, because I was not sure what to say about it. I was keen to go, because it sounded interesting and was in the studio of Crucible theatre and I enjoy the intimacy of that space, which can give rise to some different plays. I came out thinking, it was a pleasant way to spend a Saturday afternoon but a little underwhelmed and that was possibly because I had set expectations high.

The story was about three / four generations of women in a family. There was just four women in the play and they played their characters at different ages, so that was slightly confusing. Through the family there seemed to be a history of deafness so there was some signing. But, it bugged me that this was not addressed; who was affected and how; the scientist in me wanting to know about the genetics. On the other hand it was making a statement not to address it and just have it as a family fact and not something to be highlighted.

As this was an arts council production the theatre, this week sent me a questionnaire about it. The questionnaire asked me to rate the play upon different aspects. At the end it showed me how, my answers compared to other people’s answers. Mostly my answers were in a similar range to others but, I rated slightly lower. The big exception was on likely hood to come to something like it again; most people were close to neutral but, I selected strongly agreed I would. I would see something similar again. Like I said I like seeing different things in the studio. It is like Edinburgh festival; you get some quirky plays and they are worth taking a punt on because of the fabulous things you see. The not so good things generally still give you something to think / talk about. I think the least enjoyable studio play has been Krapps tapes which was one man show with Richard Wilson which bored me but at Crucible corner least got to say What just happened, did we miss something? Whereas My Mother said did not bored me and I enjoyed the theatrical experience. I have shared questionnaire results on Wonderwall360 Instragram.