This hospital-deathbed play written and directed by Anna Mackmin is the opposite of a good night out, even though two gifted and much-loved actresses take the leads. Celia Imrie is Beth, a vain, feckless, domineering bohemian mother now dying at 76 with dementia and from a stroke. Tamsin Greig is her long-suffering daughter Bo, flashing back over decades of enraging, exasperating neediness, while also struggling to parent an extremely challenging adopted daughter, repeatedly seen screaming on scratchy video upstage.
Given West End audiences skew towards middle age or older, you’d think these are the kind of things they’d go to the theatre to get away from. And while I don’t doubt it comes from a place of sincerity, the story’s humour and pathos feel synthetic and unearned, the depiction of the issues surrounding end-of-life care glib and perfunctory.
