Theatre review: Backstroke

Future Dames Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig play mother and daughter in Anna Mackmin's Backstroke at the Donald and Margot Warehouse. Beth (Imrie) has had a stroke, and is in hospital unable to move or communicate. When her daughter Bo (Greig) arrives, she bombards the medical staff with demands to know how long her mother has left to live, and for them to take out her drip and stop feeding her. What initially seems like a callous hope that she can get rid of her mother as soon as possible turns out to be genuinely heartfelt concern: Beth spent her entire life insisting that if she ended up in this situation she should be nil by mouth, and there should be no attempts to prolong her life; if anything she asks to be put out of her misery. But as with so much in her life she never actually put her wishes down on paper, and now Bo fears she'll get the prolonged death she always dreaded.

Theatre review: Rabbit Hole

American playwright David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole has had a bit of a stuttering journey to the London stage - a couple of years ago a big West End production was announced, only to get cancelled almost as soon as it went on sale. Now, after the venue had a hit with Lindsay-Abaire's Good People, Hampstead Theatre becomes the natural home for his family drama of grief. We open with a domestic scene as Becca (Claire Skinner) washes and folds a child's clothes as her sister Izzy (Georgina Rich) catches her up with her latest personal dramas. This surface of normality is hard-bought though, as it turns out Becca is getting the clothes ready to take to charity, her 4-year-old son having run out into traffic and died eight months earlier. She and her husband Howie (Tom Goodman-Hill) are both trying to deal with the loss in their own ways, but their different coping strategies are putting a strain on their relationship.

Theatre review: Between Us

Really quite an odd little play settles into Arcola Studio 2 at the moment, as a therapist tries her hand at stand-up comedy in Sarah Daniels' Between Us. Julia's (Charlotte Cornwell) comedy act provides the narration for a play that sees her try to reconnect with Kath (Georgina Rich,) the daughter she gave up for adoption. This story is interspersed with monologues from two of her patients, whose confessions in the therapist's chair also touch on relationships between parents and children. Some years earlier, Teresa (Rich) came to see Julia to unburden herself about her problems raising her own two adopted children, and the realisation that she can't cope. A more recent client is Dave (Callum Dixon,) who's depressed since the birth of his daughter. His fears for her future stem from an event in his past that dovetail unexpectedly with Teresa's confessions.