NEW! Reviews for My Mother Said I Never Should
Lancashire Evening Post - 8 Feb 2010
The obvious affection that young director Amy Leach has for this hymn to motherhood has been poured into a richly rewarding production.
It has been a set text for A-level students almost since its first performance in Manchester in 1987, yet remarkably this is its first major production back in the region since that time.
Charlotte Keatley created a miniature masterwork out of the very 20th century relationships between four generations of women from the same family, which plays out over 60 years or more.
It is written with a raw candour, in dialogue that hits straight to the heart with its audience - no matter their gender. You can hear your own mother talking here, on more than one occasion.
And yet it's not some preachy paean to women's liberation, instead it demonstrates that hard-won freedoms bring with them new responsibilities, and above all else, the need for honesty.
Some of the time it does it through gently knowing comedy, while a strong back-story maintains the dramatic momentum to events that rock backwards and forwards in time.
Brent Lees' sound design evokes a subtle sense of period, through wartime aircraft overhead or snatches of transistor music, while Hayley Grindle's staging suggests something of a domestic battleground, or a direct hit on the home front!
The four performances are just as thorough in their delivery. Anne Kavanagh, the Oldham matriarch; Christine Mackie, the GI bride; Lorna Beckett, the art school hippie; and Josie Dexter, the proto-punk . . . who also enjoys a disturbing ability to cry more like a baby than some babies.
Never mind what your mother told you, take her to see this first-class production. Or if they ever listen to you . . . take your daughters.
David Upton
Lancaster Guardian - 9 Feb 2010
Family secrets and the generation gap between mothers and daughters are brought to the fore in the latest Dukes production.
My Mother Said I Never Should looks at how a mother's hopes and dreams for her own daughter can shape their relationship.
The award-winning drama by Charlotte Keatley highlights not only some of the vast differences between the changing attitudes and expectations through the generations, but also the similarities.
It gives an intimate look at family life and how people choose to lead their lives and the outcome those decisions can bring.
The play shifts between the past and present throughout, spanning 60 years and four different generations of women.
While it felt slightly disjointed at first, the story gradually fell into place and it became easier to feel an affinity with the characters as they share touching moments and memories which cross the generations.
All four actresses are convincing in their performances, swapping seamlessly between the different ages they portray.
While the set - in the Round - is very minimal, with just a gravel floor and only a wooden cabinet and a piano for props, the attention to detail in the play is obvious.
Cultural references to music and fashion, as well as several mentions of the war, show how well researched it is and no doubt bring memories flooding back for many people in the audience.
The show will hit a nerve in parts as people remember their own upbringing, while also raising a smile at comments which the audience recollect from their own mothers.
The Stage - 8 Feb 2010
Twenty-five years after Charlotte Keatley found it almost impossible for anyone prepared to stage her all-female drama about the “ordinary” lives of four generations of women, this still stands as one of the most finely crafted works in recent British drama.
Perhaps the problem was the non-linear, non-chronological storyline, or perhaps it was the fact that the nearest any male member of the proceedings gets is sitting unseen offstage in a car or kitchen. Thanks then to Brigid Larmour at Manchester’s Contact Theatre in 1987 for starting its ball rolling and thanks now to Amy Leach for an inspired revival which takes full advantage of those elements which were once so scorned.
From air raids to art school, birth pills to post-punk, through myths and motherhood, the four generations share and pass on wisdom in what becomes a full circle of life and death. As the quartet of women, Lorna Beckett (as Jackie - a teenager by the late sixties), Josie Daxter (Rosie - reaching her teens as Margaret Thatcher was elected for her third term as prime minister), Anne Kavanagh (Doris - the grande dame of the dynasty who sacrificed the most to be a “housewife”) and Christine Mackie (Margaret - determined to “have it all” in post-war Britain) all criss-cross from innocence to experience in a timescale which sees women emerge from the wreckage of the last world war to the uncertainties of the present day - each generation in turn teaching and learning from the next.
It’s still so powerful, poignant and unmissable.
Robin Duke
Opposing Lancaster City Council's proposed £20,000 cut to The Dukes
A message from The Dukes Director, Joe Sumsion:
Lancaster City Council has given notice that it intends to cut The Dukes funding by just under £20,000 from April next year. This follows a £20,000 cut last year. If this happens it will have a major impact on local people, giving us no option but to increase prices for youth theatre members and charge commercial rates to community groups who use our spaces. The proposed cut will also jeopardise our core funding from Arts Council England and Lancashire County Council as well as our ability to attract additional funds. If this happens it will be very damaging for the organisation, affecting not just our audiences and employees but also the many local businesses benefiting from our recent success.
The Dukes will vigorously oppose this proposed cut. To assist us, we would like you and others who understand the value of The Dukes to the community to write to your local councillor or to Councillor Stuart Langhorn, Leader of the Council, to express your views. I hope you will be willing and able to do this.
Please make your voice heard by writing to your local city councillor. I would also be grateful if you could copy your letter to me here at The Dukes by email – jsumsion@dukes-lancaster.org – or by post or present it to one of our staff next time you visit. We will collect all contributions and forward them to the City Council Consultation Officer on your behalf. With your consent, we may also include your support on our website and in campaign materials. We value any support you are able to give.
Joe Sumsion, Director.
CONTACT DETAILS FOR YOUR LOCAL COUNCILLORS
UPDATE JAN 2010 - SOME LETTERS FROM SUPPORTERS
RESULTS OF THE CITY COUNCIL SPENDING SURVEY
