My Mother Said I Never Should review, Connaught Theatre, Worthing: A must-see play for women

My Mother Said I Never Should, from left, Rebecca Birch as Rosie Metcalfe, Kathryn Ritchie as Jackie Metcalfe and Lisa Burrows as Margaret Bradley

Many of the mainly female audience left the Connaught Theatre last night totally confused, following the first Worthing performance of My Mother Said I Never Should.

If only they had stayed for the post-show question and answer session with the fantastic cast, they would have learned so much, and realised just how much thought and work had gone into this clever play.

What was so interesting was to hear a group of GCSE students talking with the four actors, batting questions and discussions back and forth.

They had clearly thoroughly enjoyed the production and said it had helped them a great deal with a difficult text in the run-up to their exams.

The structure of Charlotte Keatley’s work, the most widely-performed play ever written by a woman, is deliberately designed to be non-linear – things do not happen chronologically or indeed always in a static time frame.

Although this can, and did, cause confusion, it also allows us to see the different women in different ways and at different times of their lives, all at the same time.

Doris Partington, played by Judith Paris, is the matriarch and has to show a full range of ages from around five right up to being a great grandmother.