Sheffield Playhouse Jan 25th 2024
Audience members at Wish You Weren’t Here were actually more than delighted to be there, watching this wonderfully funny and poignant little play-for-today, brilliantly enacted and ingeniously presented in this intimate amphitheater setting.
Impact is immediate as breezy, beaming 32-year-old mum Lorna wheels her weekend suitcase into the initial, deceptive bareness of a set that consists of five stark, thin, wooden platforms of different heights, set upon metal frames, and three active screens, one small, two medium, that show we’re at the seaside in Scarborough. It’s obvious Lorna’s here to have a good time. Trailing, reluctant and disgruntled, behind her into their premium hotel room with sea view (if you climb high enough to peer out over Tesco’s) comes 16-year-old daughter Mila, her skin a different colour to her mum’s. It’s obvious Mila’s not here to have a good time.
As this mother-teenager relationship tussle progresses through complex ins and outs and frustrating ups and downs via arguments, antagonisms and resentments, some universal to all parent-teen relations, others specific to their particular situation, a fuller picture of their lives gradually builds, bringing warmth and laughter all the way in spite of all the conflict.
Astoundingly strong, assured performances come from both Eleanor Henderson as mum and Olivia Pentelow as Mila, their characters and relationship instantly and enduringly engaging. Mila’s dad, estranged from Lorna, appears only in conversation, but the grandma Mila claims was “more of a mother” to her than her actual denim-clad mum is present throughout – as a bag of grey ashes, later popped into a bright yellow children’s bucket. Gran, who’s been so pivotal in Mila’s life and is painfully missed by her – though far from revered by her mum – also comes to life in video clips showing past happy Scarborough holidays of the three together. It’s this past happiness and closer connection that mum desperately wants to recapture now but time has moved on: Mila’s no longer that small child.
The deceptively simple set is magnificent in its versatility while the number of props stashed in little cases and bags elicits similar wonder as when Mary Poppins unpacks her bottomless Gladstone. As scenes change location from hotel room to beach to restaurant to funfair, arcade or cliff-top, all reflected by images on the screens, out of the bags emerge sandals, bikini, robe, sunglasses, frequently consulted mobiles, headset, takeaways, glasses, Lidl prosecco, yellow bucket, menus, cups with straws, a rod to catch plastic ducks and armfuls of custard creams, while fine sound design works to create further variety and context. The multi-purpose, multi-location, wooden platforms set the action at varying levels while good movement direction adds further interest whether sunbathing, feeding slot machines, dancing to the rhythm of the rumba, dining, reclining or scattering ashes from on high.
One of the main aims of Theatre Centre over its seventy years has been to create work that will draw in, resonate with, and inspire young people, so playwright and actor Katie Redford (Lily Pargetter to Archers’ fans), keen to understand and reflect in her one-act play the preoccupations, anxieties, hopes, fears and ambitions of teenagers today, has consulted hundreds of them. This entertaining piece, though, with its universal themes, will be enjoyed by anyone of any age. After all, rebellion, resentment, loggerhead battles and complex relationships between surly teenagers and parents are evergreen problems with every generation. Teenage girls have forever been full of angst and insecurity, especially when it comes to body image, self-worth, pleasing peers and finding a significant other to pair up with. Now Redford adds in the more recent pressures and anxieties created by our modern, overly analytic, tetchy world with its judgmental, tyrannical social media, all piled onto children almost from birth.
Like Saffy and Eddy in Ab Fab – though toned down to be less exaggerated – call centre worker Lorna is a mum who’s determined to have fun no matter what, which, to her, means dressing up, wildly drinking, spending money and frivolously flirting; and she’s desperate for Mila to share in her fun by doing the same. Mila, though, is more staid, sensible, thoughtful and despondent, especially when stuck with mum; after all, the world’s vast problems sit heavy on her shoulders alongside chips arising from her personal woes. When mum urges Mila to jump in the air as she takes yet another selfie to record their fun, she looks at the shot and complains, ‘you’ve still got your feet on the ground!’ But it’s not just common sense keeping Mila’s feet on the ground: it’s the weight of mighty climate and pollution crises, of relentless, tyrannical social media pressures, of confused, shifting values and expectations, of grief and resentment. Yet, throughout, humour shines through all the same, ensuring life, somehow, retains its sparkle.
Neither generation really understands where the other is coming from – and ever was it thus. But gradually, as extra pieces of the jigsaw of their lives slot into place, Mila comes to realise that, though mushrooms live in the dark and have shit piled over them every day, without all that shit they would never grow. As we witness Mila suffering the agonies of growing up and struggling to find her way and her mum suffering the agonies of being grown up and still struggling to find hers, we see that this is, perhaps, a pretty apt metaphor for life.
With a touching ending and hope on the horizon this is a pleasing, thoughtful play that bobs along on buoyant humour.
Eileen Caiger Gray
The show runs in Sheffield until Feb 10th before touring nationwide to theatres and schools. For further information and to book tickets follow this link.
