Parenting

How to Be Brave review – one mother's soul-searching BMX odyssey


Theatre is a laboratory where we put a character centre stage, make things difficult and see what happens. Often, as is the case in Siân Owen’s single-hander for Dirty Protest theatre company, they go off the rails. Put under pressure, the fight-or-flight mechanism kicks in and running seems the most viable option.

Thus it is for Laura Dalgleish’s Katie, a single mum relying on the hospitality of her mother while her young daughter faces a perilous operation. It’s not only the little girl who needs to be brave. Indeed, the greater pressure is on Katie, whose adult status means she knows the risks and carries the responsibility. How can she be brave when she feels such an intense combination of guilt – however unwarranted – and helplessness?

Instead of facing up to it, she snaps. Leaving her mother’s house on an impulse, the 35-year-old hits the streets of her Newport home town. She goes on a journey that is as much about her formative childhood experiences, when she too had to be brave, as it is about the modern-day locale where old scores have been settled yet old wounds remain.

As a woman delving into her soul on a stolen BMX, Dalgleish gives an impassioned performance, catching the agony of a woman who needs to come to terms with her own vulnerabilities before finding the strength to tend to someone else.

In Catherine Paskell’s bright and uncluttered production, she is forever making a break for the exits and forever being pulled back to face her demons. If it is dramatically limited as a play, Dalgleish’s performance is alive with energy and empathy.



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