A Word for Mother by Tim McArthur. Upstairs at the Gatehouse, Highgate Village, London N6 to 26 May 2024.

3✩✩✩ Review: William Russell.

“Three daughters face up to family secrets after their mother dies.”

Interesting, with a strong cast, Tim McArthur’s play about a mother and her three daughters , suffers from an opening scene which seems to consist of endless phone calls by a woman we do not know anything about to a variety of people. It is there to tell us that someone, Pru, the mother of the woman, has died – a broken cup and spectacles on the floor by an upturned chair tell us where – and the woman, her middle daughter, is trying to tell her sisters and get her husband, who has left her, to collect their two sons from school. But the endless phone calls, trips to the fridge and incessant making of cups of coffee or tea gets wearisome and only start to improve once Pru arrives making rather implausible curtains for the kitchen window. Louise Gold delivers a nicely judged performance – Pru likes to be called Mummie, and is bossy but it soon turns out she is no Mummy Dearest and that she genuinely loves her daughters, possessive but not abusive. The eldest is a successful lawyer, the middle one a school teacher whose former husband has roving eyes, and the youngest a would be free spirit in her twenties by a different father who is simply desperate to get away from home and Mummie. Once the secrets start to be revealed the play gathers power and the revelations McArthur has in store are well worth waiting for. Abigail Moore (Charity) , Heather Johnson(Faith) and Melaina Pecorini (hope) back Gold up strongly as they each confront their own secrets and those their mother had kept. Director Sarah Redmond keeps it all moving, but there is an awful lot of kettle boiling for mugs of something, and all three daughters have a remarkable appetite for consuming vodka or, if none is available, tequila. Cigarettes used to be the prop de jour in plays, but that is no longer possible, so here we get the glass of something but why it is not wine is anybody’s guess. Pru may just have been a hard drinking mum and her girls follow her but it does get repetitive. If Pru held the family together what will happen when she is no longer there to try makes interesting finding out, and there is a lot to be revealed . A fresh look at the opening scene, however, would be a good idea – and maybe Gold could reconsider her hair style which may be her real life look but is not quite what one expects for Pru.

Cast

Louise Gold – Pru.

Abigail Moore – Charity.

Heather Johnson – Faith.

Melaina Pecorini – Hope.

Creatives

Director– Sarah Redmond.

Set Designer – Lillian Caccia.

Lighting Designer – Robyn Lowes.

Costume Designer Michelle Taylor.