REVIEW - The Good Enough Mums Club is a thoroughly heartwarming, funny, and an honest account of the relentlessness of motherhood

On Thursday, we were invited to The Lowry, Salford to watch The Good Enough Mums Club. Read what our reviewer Leanne Parker had to say about this fantastic show...

The Good Enough Mums Club is a wonderfully relatable, emotional, and realistic insight into life as a Mum, told through the story of five very different, but somehow similar women who share one thing in common, their roles as a Mum. The staging is simple, designed to appear as a space within a Community Centre where the group meets, with a clever sidepiece, which acts as ‘Esme’s’ home. I am a Mum myself, and my plus one for the evening (also a Mum), took our seats in the auditorium alongside an audience made up of probably 95% women. It struck me immediately how connected this audience were to each other and to the performers this evening – which is the irony of Motherhood - there are billions of us, several hundred in one space even and yet, this production captures the loneliness and isolation that we can feel as individuals, while simultaneously celebrating the sacred and special role of other Mums who walk this road and take this journey with us.  

The five women from various walks of life, who meet at a mother and toddler group each week for two hours of sanity, space and sister-in-motherhood are front and centre throughout the production. The intimacy of the staging and warmth of these fantastic actresses, invites the audience into their group to the level that you feel almost as though you’re there with them in the room. The clever characterisation is so relatable. Essentially these woman have very little in common, but as often happens when women come together in ante-natal groups and later, in Mum and Baby/Toddler groups, although they're thrown together with people they essentially have nothing in common with other than the fact that they all have small humans to raise, and survive while doing so, soon they form friendships and bonds which draw them together until their lives and stories are inextricable from one another. This is a play which is first and foremost about solidarity and the importance of having those networks of support to hold you up and keep you level as you navigate your way through Motherhood.

Five incredible performers make this production utterly compelling. Michelle, mum of twin boys is played by Rebecca Bernice Amissah (A Strange Loop UK première, Guys and Dolls). Michelle brings to life the struggles and challenges of being a Black Woman raising Black Sons in the current social landscape, with all the complexities surrounding Race and equality as she shares with the group an all-to-familiar experience while using Public Transport, where her worth and success as a Mum is criticised and judged with the classic line linked to ‘Where you come from this might be acceptable’.      

Bea is the ‘Posh Mum’, and responsible for the group’s existence. Her initially irritating, competitive and ‘Housewives of Hale’ persona is soon exposed as something of a ‘smoke and mirrors’ façade. The reality is, she is lonely, with her husband clearly very much absent from the family home and lives. Played by Jo Kirkland (The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Dear Evan Hansen), Bea’s vulnerability, lack of self confidence and deep sense of loneliness really comes through and the way her fellow Mums embrace her, despite their vast differences, is really heartwarming.  

Sophie is a Mum who is quirky, lively, and instantly lovable. Played by Amy Ross (Wicked, Heathers, Kinky Boots), this Mum is hiding a heartbreaking secret that, when revealed, elicited a palpable and collective outpouring of grief, emotion and love from the audience.

Jade Samuels plays Chantel (founding member of 'Jumprov', the UK's first all Black & Brown Improv group & a founder of MAWA, the UK's first all Black all Female Shakespeare company), a Mum is a bit of a rough diamond, one you’d always want on your team!

Belinda Wollaston (Judy Garland in the West End world premiere of JUDY!, Jekyll & Hyde) plays Esme, who we first see struggling to leave the house to join the group. Clearly all is not alright and we witness her descent into postpartum psychosis, which is portrayed with sensitivity, unsurprisingly given the writers own experiences with this awful, poorly understood and horrendously isolating condition. At the closing of the first Act, the desperate, terrifying, and brutal reality of her situation is left hanging in the air as we see Esme break in front of us, breaking us a little in return.

This cast is exquisite. They are brilliant, enthusiastic, and bursting with clearly genuine affection for the production, each other, the subject matter and above all, being Mums. The plot, including some fantastic songs and brilliant one-liners is a thoroughly heartwarming, funny, and deeply honest account of the reality of the relentlessness of Motherhood – it’s highest, most joyous highs and it’s gut-wrenching, soul-destroying lows. All of it is captured perfectly and does justice to the hundreds and hundreds of stories that are woven together in this production. I laughed until I cried and then cried on top of that, several times during the evening. The emotional journey is a little snapshot of the emotional journey of daily Motherhood, a lovely touch which took me by surprise but somehow made me feel less alone and a little bit less critical of myself. We end the evening with the message that where Motherhood is concerned, perfection is impossible, but you are good enough - and that’s good enough.    

WE SCORE THE GOOD ENOUGH MUMS CLUB...




The Good Enough Mums Club is on at The Lowry until Saturday 2nd December.


Watch our "In Conversation with Rebecca Bernice Amissah " discussing the show

BUY TICKETS TO SEE THE GOOD ENOUGH MUMS CLUB