REVIEW: MaMa at Little Angel Theatre / Camden Fringe 9 - 13 Aug 2023

An inventive skewering of modern times, but in need of refinement ★★★

It’s the future and the pessimists have all been proven right. The planet is ruined and a lone woman remains, her only companions the pregnant bump in her stomach and the irrepressible Siri, Apple’s infamous virtual assistant. I say infamous because for many Siri is less of an assistant and more of an omnipresent annoyance, butting in when needed least.

And this is precisely the role Siri plays in this particular apocalypse, interrupting MaMa (Frankie Roberts) with elaborate factoids and inappropriate musical numbers as she does her best to monologue the planet’s fate to her unborn child. In this, Roberts gives a strong performance as a highly sympathetic character, while opposite her a daring directorial choice has been made to cast Siri not as a robotic voice-over but as an energetic chorus of 4 who dart and dance around MaMa.

Consequently, there’s a lot of activity on stage, the high energy delivering some funny moments but ultimately feeling a bit rough and thrown together. Some lines from the chorus of Siris are hard to understand as the actors rush through them, and a fair bit of the action feels noisy and distracting rather than coordinated. From a narrative perspective as well it can be unsatisfactory, as while the chorus is established as intrusive and annoying there’s no resulting payoff, such as MaMa finally shutting them off.

An act of violence toward a symbol of our increasingly technological world would be quite fitting as the play’s satire on the rampant consumerism that lead to its own world ending is easily its strongest and most enjoyable theme, providing some of the funniest and most insightful satire of its type. On the flip side, other story elements feel neglected: it’s never clear what happened to the rest of humanity, what’s lead to Mama being the only woman left and how exactly she got pregnant as the world ended.

Not telling us can certainly work, but it feels unnatural with the long build-up that comes before, which focused on the history of the universe up till this point, covering The Big Bang, dinosaurs and all the way up to the Covid Pandemic, all narrated by MaMa to her baby with deft humour. Naturally the audience feels we’re being given a linear progression of events that will eventually establish the play’s setting, but the story stops before this most anticipated part can be shared. Considering the show clocks in at around 45 minutes, a last act covering this period feels needed.

Ultimately, there’s a good play in here that offers an inventive skewering of modern times, but a little more refinement is needed.

MaMa showing in Little Angel Theatre 9th, 10th, 13th August 2023

Box office: https://camdenfringe.com/events/mama/

Written by Phoebe Moore

Directed by Grace Darvill (AD: Tom Terry)

Sound Design by Zoe Lou Cameron

Produced by Phoebe Moore, Grace Darvill and Tom Terry

Reviewed by Harry Conway