“Swimming pools do have a Pavlovian effect on people’s bladders,” Celia Imrie chuckles to a not quite six-year-old Tamsin Greig, as the two actors float about an imaginary pool in the intimate space of the Donmar Warehouse.
The Donmar presents the world premiere of Anna Mackmin’s semi-autobiographical play about motherhood, circling a contentious and reversed parent-child relationship through the ages. Bo, played by sitcom star Greig, rushes to her mother’s hospital side amid her dementia diagnosis and a series of strokes. Doyenne of stage and screen, Imrie plays Beth as a hippie Miss Havisham, with half-grey, half-pink hair and bohemian flares riddled with holes.
