First thing this morning I texted my best friend ‘Middle Child show, well worth seeing, wish I could tell you about it – she’s going on Sunday – because best friends share everything right?
When the promo came out for Middle Child’s new play Baby, He Loves You I have to admit to being somewhat taken aback. The bride at the centre of the brand new wedding play written by Hull playwright Maureen Lennon, does not smile from the picture, she is far removed from the archetypal blushing bride, this bride casts an uninvitingly cold figure with a somewhat dead expression.
Baby, He Loves You is not really about a wedding but a story of the love between best friends Jodie ‘bride to be’ played by Laura Meredith, and her maid of honour Lucy: a memorable full debut by Elle Ideson.
L – R Elle Ideson and Laura Meredith – Baby, He Loves You – Picture: Tom Arran
A relative newcomer, the Hull actor Elle left a memorable impression in Hannah Scorer’s 1988, a scratch work programmed last year. Her performance tonight is electrifying and suggests she possesses that elusive thing you can’t teach; believability; presence; magnetism: she commands the room.
Sold as a show with aerial acrobatics the outdoor/indoor space at Stage at the Dock is book ended by two large person-sized hoops. The hoops are not an additional bit of fun to provide some spectacle, what takes place upon them is integral to the story. The spinning motion echoes the hands on a clock face suggesting time passing.
The interaction with the hoops allows for a complete shift in focus and mood, a separate, dynamic space for the characters to step outside of the story and peel away their emotional selves. Mention must go to choreographer Danielle Clements for the way she has incorporated the hoop so seamlessly into the narrative.
As Jodie and Lucy’s world slowly tears apart the distance between the two friends, spinning on their individual hoops, grows ever wider. This feeling of disconnect is further underlined in an animated chase sequence as both desperately try to find the other, terrified what will happen if they succeed.
Choreography and movement does so much of the storytelling in Baby, He Loves You including the alarming way Lucy, her body now like that of a rag doll, is passed from person to person, during a party sequence. I lost track of which party, there’s a lot of pre-celebrations in the lead up to Jodie and Mike’s big day.
Mike – played by Jonathan Raggett – is a smart young lawyer – conveniently – and is the soon to be son-in-law of Phil (Jodie’s car salesman dad ) There are clear warning lights on the dashboard early doors, but we, and Jodie, choose to ignore them and put the niggling feelings of unease down to wedding jitters.
What is really interesting by the time the warning lights have changed to full on red flags – and this is all to be found in the subtext of the terrific and multi-layered writing by Lennon, is the amount of mirroring in the work. First choreographically between Jodie and Lucy, and then narratively between mother and daughter. The reappearance of Alison’s old veil coupled with what seems on the surface to be the words of a protective and all-knowing mother, hide a deeper truth, underscoring unpleasant echoes of the past. It’s no accident it is a bed that is taking up half the stage.
Alison is now on fire watch but she married him, and her daughter is soon due to marry Mike, who might not be quite as squeaky clean as he makes out. Madeline MacMahon who plays Jodie’s mum Alison, lends her considerable vocal to the dramatic original songs, written by Ysabelle Wombwell, which elicit a sort of universal sympathy, and insight, as to why they all are who they are: why, we, in turn, are who we are.
All the while Alison doesn’t want to face up to Dan McGarry’s Phil and his ‘misdemeanours’ – at our, beautifully dressed, table he is quickly handed the moniker ‘filthy Phil’ – we are reminded that we too may choose to look the other way, accepting treatment we know to be wrong. This idea sits at the heart of the play and one of the many reasons why it works so well. At one time or another we have all found ourselves being that unreliable friend; we have all felt hurt from another’s actions, and we have all known men like Phil.
At the start there’s a long sequence that tells us just how close the two girls are. The setting is Jodie’s bedroom, a private place, a place of shared secrets; of laughter and tears and yet Phil can walk straight in and start on with his lewd, inappropriate comments.
Baby, He Loves you is a balancing act – hoops not withstanding – an emotional tightrope that leaves you feeling completely wrung out, so much so that I found I was simultaneously hugging myself and squirming in my seat throughout.
Middle Child Theatre’s Baby, He Loves You, written by Maureen Lennon and Directed by Paul Smith, runs at the Stage at the Dock until Sun 28th April
For more details: https://www.middlechildtheatre.co.uk/baby-he-loves-you/
MICHELLE DEE 