An original World War Two story that is let down by its runtime
Heidi Luker’s ’The London Mothers’, directed by Gina Luker Edwards and performed at The Space theatre in Canary Wharf follows Mary (Roxane Deireux) and Doreen (Çian Rouf) as they prepare to give birth 150 miles away from home against the backdrop of the Second World War. Their (also pregnant) friend Gladys (Georgie Kay) decided to stay in London to give birth. We see vignettes of the women’s lives in the nine months, giving birth, taking care of newborns and living in Willersley Castle. Each woman has a different relationship to the father of their child and I appreciated that Luker wanted to highlight the range of experiences of new mothers in the Second World War.
The actors have to be commended for their enthusiasm and energy. All five members of the cast gave the show their all, and there were some genuinely touching moments. Whilst the cockney accents were sometimes spotty, their energy was infectious, and you found yourself rooting for Doreen and Mary.
I also appreciated the attempts at going beyond a traditional play with elements of audience interaction that were charming even if they didn’t always land. They had audience members playing Pooh sticks and idly chatting about how busy the bus was. They tried to liven up the show with live music and dance sequences which were charming but there was scope to more successfully integrate them, as they often felt like they were coming out of nowhere rather than there being music that the actors organically join in for.
Where the London Mothers suffers is its script. The show is based on real experience and Luker has clearly done her research, making meticulous use of archival footage. It is no mean feat to tell a story about the Second World War that hasn’t been told before, and it is fantastic that theatre is being used to tell this original story. However the short run time of the script means that sometimes it felt that Luker wanted to showcase her research which led to stilted and expository dialogue about where they were and what they were doing and why they were doing it as opposed to showing them doing things.
There were some genuinely interesting and novel moments of staging in the show. The use of torches in the monologues at the start and the air raid sequence were fantastic. The London Mothers has great bones and some moving moments, but ultimately attempting to tell a story that broad in 55 minutes means that the vignettes are all rushed and it doesn’t pack the emotional punch that it could.