The Mother Sh*t – Pleasance Theatre

The Mother Sh*t is a genre-bending delight. After their sell out run at Camden People’s Theatre with Frills and Spills, magicians of Stumble Trip Theatre who manage to craft beatboxing, physical theatre and personal stories of 50 participants verbatim in an hour! Part heart-warming, part heart-wrenching Mother sh*t has you in splits while weeping uncontrollably. I have never heard the audience break out in so many giggles throughout a show. Grace Church and Chloe Young are like a rubber band, connected at the hip; you can’t distinguish where one begins and the other ends. Their vibrancy is infectious. Their sense of play and curiosity is grounded by the diversity of stories they have collected. The background score is improvised by Conrad Murray, Lakeisha Lynch-Stevens and Dunja Botij who bring their training specializations and identities that blow you away!

Pleasance theatre tucked away in Islington, amidst row of the residential buildings, hosts visiting Edinburgh fringe shows. It has the yummiest pizzas and hip bar too! The show hosted at the downstairs studio has a neat capacity of 72 seats only and was completely choc a bloc full. With audience on all three sides, each of the performers had great range for engagement and peripheral vision reaching out to the viewers in each corner of the space.

The play though whimsical in performance uncovers deeper connections, relationships and memories we have with our mothers. In witnessing the archival voices, the troupe has documented interspersed with their own stories, we can’t help but reflect on our own relationships with our mother/ mother figures. The continuous cycle of birth, care and old age had many a teary eye in the audience. The play also provides platform for forms like clowning, beatboxing, mime which often tend to be outsiders on the theatre stage. It is so slick, entertaining and fun!  You don’t want to miss this laugh riot.

Reviewer: Anisha Pucadyil

Reviewed: 11th November 2022

North West End UK Rating: ★★★★★