There is a tremendous amount of heart in this musical two-hander about the stresses of early parenthood. It is inspired by the experience of co-writer Laura Wilde and her partner Kyle Falconer, best known as singer of the View. His second solo album, No Love Songs for Laura, from 2021, provides the material for a gig-theatre chamber piece about a couple torn apart by career ambitions and postnatal depression.
The script, co-written with Johnny McKnight, is a miniature soap opera in which the needs of Lana (Dawn Sievewright), isolated and insecure as the mother of a baby boy, come into conflict with the opportunities presented to Jessie (John McLarnon), a songwriter who gets a break in America just when he is needed most at home. Many of the details of childbirth and parenthood are familiar, and there is a generic quality to the early boy-meets-girl scenes, but it is written with knowledge and compassion, and rises in intensity as Lana is overwhelmed by her mental illness.
