Mother, Wife and the Complicated Life

Anyone who has had the misfortune—excuse me,  blessing—of having a baby will relate to this wry, funny and poignant cabaret about the sheer horror—sorry, joys, challenges and disillusions—of marriage and parenthood. It's possibly the world's worse kept secret that having kids sucks sometimes. Yet still we persist in procreating, and this is the subject of Amity Dry's  musical Mother, Wife and the Complicated Life. The story is familiar, and that’s because the experience is almost universal. Informed by her recent experiences as a parent, Amity Dry has portrayed the lives of these mothers with very real emotions most parents will recognise. It speaks to how in spite of 50 years’ emancipation, the brunt of raising children still falls largely on women. But it's also about the strength of friendships, and how women mentor and support each other.

While she resents it a little, Nikki Aitken's Bec is resigned to her life as a virtual slave to her husband and children. While Bec gets the funniest lines, Rachel McCall’s perfectionist bridezilla Jessie is hilarious as she berates the caterers for specifying asparagus wrapped prosciutto instead of pancetta. As Kate, Ms Dry shows exactly how tough it is on a young, single woman to make the decision to have a child, knowing that it throws her life into uncertainty.  Susan Ferguson plays Lily, whose apparently perfect life shatters, with heartbreaking veracity.

The music is fantastic. There are elements of rock, folk, gospel, and some absolutely gorgeous soaring four-part harmonies. Nikki Aitken as Bec sings a deep, resonant full-voiced blues piece on her role as a stay-at-home mum, and Rachel McCall gets to show off some lovely classical voice skills.

There is a degree of perfectionism evident in the design. Every prop is perfectly placed to make a harmonious picture on the stage; right down to the detail of jewellery precisely colour matched with aspects of the set. The set itself has several quite complex reversible mobile structures: doors, windows and walls, designed to be rearranged quickly to form different domestic spaces – interior or exteriors, houses or cafes – the number of which could have been problematic had the set changes not been choreographed with such precision.

The Q has again chosen a winning musical which is both unashamedly sentimental and yet has real depth. Mother, Wife and the Complicated life is wry, hilarious, heart-breaking and soul-warming, and with fabulous music and vocals.

Cathy Bannister