Not Your Superwoman
Despite an A-list cast of Bridgerton’s Golda Rosheuval and Letitia Wright of Black Panther fame, Not Your Superwoman feels like a wilfully scrappy note for Lynette Linton to end her exemplary reign at the Bush Theatre on – a fringey drama by a relatively obscure playwright (Emma Dennis-Edwards) that doesn’t at all feel like it’s being groomed for a West End transfer.
Linton has directed a lot of glossy slebby dramas at other theatres – she’s become a commercial director of some clout – but she’s kept the Bush’s rough-and-ready character intact throughout her reign. There’s definitely a charm to seeing the Bush not gussy up for its celebrity guests, but rather the superstar Wright tackle a no ego, down-to-earth role of a regular London girl. In it, she and Rosheuval play mother and daughter Joyce and Erica, with both of them sharing the flashback role of Elaine, Erica’s late grandmother.
It charts an eventful trip to Guyana, where Joyce was born and Elaine lived until murky circumstances drove her to move to England as a single mother. Now the pair have come to the South American-Caribbean country to scatter Elaine’s ashes.
But it’s also something of a personal reckoning for the two of them: Joyce has clearly been an incredibly difficult mother to have over the years: flakey, and with a tendency to throw money at Erica when love is what she would have preferred. Erica wants to talk about this. Joyce does not.
Both actors are superb. Rosheuval’s Joyce is a cool boho mum...