>> Mother's Day by Courttia Newland

The most recent production by the Post Office Theatre Company, enjoying a successful run at the Lyric Studio, Hammersmith. Mother’s Day is a warm and comic exploration of the British nuclear family in the 21st Century.

Juanita left her husband Benny and their son Davey nearly ten years ago. Benny met Lynda and her disabled son Samuel not long afterwards, and before long the families became one. Now Benny is dead, the day of the funeral has arrived, and Lynda struggles to maintain her formerly idyllic home. She almost believes she’s coping, until Juanita arrives on her doorstep, a stranger to everyone except Davey….

I played Samuel, Lynda’s autistic son, a huge challenge in many respects. Nevertheless it was one that I relished and enjoyed. The part required that I undertook some extensive research and I’d like to thank all those people who I pestered with questions and requests for stories.

“Newland's amiable family drama is at its best when dealing with its one truly repulsive character: a white bigot called Roy who goes berserk when his sister, Linda, moves in with the genial, black Benny, recently deserted by the feisty Juanita. The fraternal rage not only punctures the myth that Britain is a land of sunny tolerance but also gives Newland the chance to expose the hypocrisy that often accompanies racial prejudice. The ludicrously reactionary Roy, himself living with a mixed-race lover whom he assumes to be South American, is definitively put down by a black girl as a man who "likes chocolate even if he doesn't recognise the taste".

…. he [Newland] is well served by Riggs O'Hara's production and by a strong cast headed by Sasha Oakley as the loving Linda, Carol Moses as the sharp-tongued Juanita, Dominick Golding as the ridiculous Roy and ex-rugby star Martin Offiah as the benignly muscular Benny. What moved me most, however, was the audience: young, attentive, multiracial. In this area at least the Post Office is clearly delivering.” Michael Billington, The Guardian.

“……Riggs O’Hara’s spirited production is fortified by Sasha Oakley’s Lynda and Dominick Golding’s belligerent Roy. Carol Moses’s swaggering charm as Juanita is counterpointed by record-breaking rugby player, Martin Offiah…[making his] debut on the professional stage and, in the process, make a cool, natural and convincingly violent Benny.”  Nicholas de Jongh, The Evening Standard.

Mothers Day..