It’s a bit of cliché using the word journey to describe someone’s life story but clichés are clichés because they’re true so it’s not wrong to describe the story of the eponymous Baby in Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s new play as it follows her life from a baby to a young woman – and what a rollercoaster ride (another cliché?) it is.
On Khadija Raza’s bright set with its floor to ceiling primrose yellow curtains, strip lighting and three chairs, we first meet Baby who addresses the audience with “I hope you got your trigger warning…if not…here she is”. There are plenty of trigger warnings associated with the play although like Judi Dench, I think trigger warnings should be limited to loud sounds and bright lights – it’s a play and shouldn’t all plays trigger some kind of emotion – if not why write them?
There’s nothing really new in Baby as it’s all been told before in plays, films, and television – especially in the soaps. We get the bright child from the deprived background who has trouble making friends with a single parent who’s not only a sex worker but a drug addict. There’s sexual abuse, coercive partners and an unwanted pregnancy, and the inevitable outcome – prison. We also get the battle with a system that tangles you up in red tape – a system that should help you find your feet but instead threatens to keep you trapped in a never-ending cycle of officialdom and seemingly mountainous obstacles.
Nevertheless, clichés notwithstanding, Bahtti has written a thoughtful and compassionate ninety-minute piece of theatre. Not everything works and some of the humour seems a little forced but it challenges us to look beyond Baby’s shortcomings – for most of the time she doesn’t do herself any favours – and consider the person Baby is and wants to be. She isn’t asking us to excuse everything she does but to consider her circumstances and understand how her journey from bright child to prisoner has got her to where she is.
What elevates Baby from cliché is the wonderful, luminous performance from Pearl Mackie. She’s charismatic, empathetic, and sympathetic and holds our interest from the moment she bounds onto the stage with that trigger warning. Baby’s sunny disposition (well, for most of the time) is an intriguing feature of her character. Even when recounting some terrible experiences, she retains an outward brightness that makes her more than a conventional victim. Makie captures that resilience while allowing glimpses beneath the smile – it’s a real tour de force. She also plays thirteen other characters such as her mother, a friend, a fellow prisoner, her child, and her child’s foster mother all superbly.
Millie Bhatia’s direction keeps the action moving with clever use of props appearing from behind the curtains and she’s helped by Movement Director Gabriella Schmidt who makes sure Baby isn’t still for a moment as she bounces and dances across the stage. Bethany Gupwell’s lighting design is in keeping with the brightness of the curtains – bright and cheery for the most part. Elena Peña’s sound design runs the gamut from ear-splitting volume at the start to more subtle sound throughout, although at times, it seemed a little too subtle and confusing.
Baby is presented by Clean Break, a theatre company that does amazing work with women who are impacted by the criminal justice system or are at risk of entering it. It was founded in 1979 to bring the hidden stories of women who are criminalised to a wide audience and should be highly commended for doing so.
Baby may not be saying anything that hasn’t been seen before but its heart is in the right place – it’s a thought-provoking piece of theatre that needs ot be seen – especially for Mackie’s stupendous performance – for once the standing ovation was fully deserved.
Four Stars.
Reviewed by Alan Fitter.
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