Edinburgh Fringe 2024
Son of a Bitch
Anna Morris and The Thelmas
Genre: Drama, New Writing, Solo Show
Venue: Summerhall
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Son of a Bitch is an honest and darkly funny solo play about a woman who is caught on camera during an air-rage incident. The video goes viral and her life unravels. This drama explores how ordinary lives can be extraordinarily torn apart and dares to question the status of motherhood. Grow up, meet Mr Right and have kids, that’s the dream isn’t it?
Review
Ten seconds, seven short words, the worst moment of your life captured forever on social media. We know what happens after – the rapidly expanding comments, the shaming, blaming and judgement, the snap decisions on your character, the trial by media. But do we know what happens before? Marnie loves her 4-year old Charlie but sometimes she doesn’t like him very much or feel much like a mother. In Son of a Bitch we get to explore the story behind the click bait headlines.
Anna Morris writer and performer has crafted a heartfelt, raw and at times funny play about the life that led to the fateful lapse and the aftermath for Marnie and her family. Starting with the incident that created the drama she spools forward and rewinds, moving from childhood to post-incident fall out, circling closer and closer and until what really happened is revealed. It is a clever structure and it works well, beautiful story telling (Director Madelaine Moore) on a simple set (lighting design Megan Lucas). And crucially Morris has avoided a pat resolution, the ambivalence at the end feels right. Perhaps at the start the writing could have explored how we might have liked Marnie less (leaping to judgement like her persecutors) so our growing awareness of the hows and whys of her life is a bigger journey.
Marnie is a bit of a drifter, always feeling second best to the brother favoured by her no-nonsense mum. We get to meet all the members of her family, her best friend, and father of Charlie. This is the one character that works less well, lacking some nuance in the writing (an off the shelf unfeeling husband) and in the performance; it was hard to pin down his voice and mannerisms. A small blip in an otherwise first rate show – highly recommended.
