My Mother, My Self
“She’s not late because she’s Black, “She’s late because she’s f**king inconsiderate.”
Joyce
This is Lynette Linton’s last production as Artistic Director of The Bush Theatre after six ground breaking years at the helm. Not Your Superwoman focuses on a mother and daughter looking at who they have become and looking back at a previous generation of women. It stars two women of colour who have become well known in television and film. Golda Rosheuvel (Bridgerton) plays Joyce, the mother and Letitia Wright (Black Panther), Erica the daughter. Both also play Elaine the grandmother.
They embark on a ten hour flight to Guyana in South America with Elaine’s ashes. Erica, who cared for her grandmother while she was ill, has a list of places in Guyana where they discussed to scatter her ashes. It becomes apparent that Erica was closer to Elaine, than her own daughter, Joyce. This is a family pattern that Emma Dennis-Edwards’s play explores.
I remember in the 1980s the popularity of Nancy Friday’s book My Mother, My Self which looked at the mother daughter relationship in terms of who we become. Maybe this play marks a revival in dramatic interest of female identity?
Joyce became a single parent early on when she separated from Erica’s father and at a crucial flashback in the play, she tells her mother Elaine that she’s not sure how she’s going to pay Erica’s school fees. Elaine’s Christian background tells her to trust in God. Another husband and another divorce later, Joyce has had to make her own way in life but some of her career may have come at the expense of her relationship with her own child.
Erica on the other hand is examining her own identity. She is reassessing her relationship with alcohol, is seeing a therapist to explore her relationship with her mother. She chose to nurse her dying grandmother and compares the closeness of that relationship with that with her own mother. It is the intensity of the closeness of the ten hour flight, in business class paid for by Joyce, which helps them reconnect and catch up. They can relax and have fun which is what Joyce wants to do and her dance moves are full of enthusiasm and electric.
During the play we hear Joyce’s experience as a small child leaving Guyana with her mother to come to Britain and parallel that with Erica’s experience with her own mother. Joyce does not have her grandmother to fill that parenting gap the way Erica does because she is in another country. But history is repeating itself.
The visit to the various places chosen is illustrated by video backdrop, the most spectacular of which is Kaieteur Falls in Guyana. The lighting adds excitement and there is music. The set is minimal, three grey chairs reconfigured for different locations. The acting is superlative, from both women, what we all have come to see but there is a feeling that the writing is not as gripping as the performances. Not Your Superwoman is a slow burn and one you will continue to reflect on.
Editor of TheatreVibe.co.uk
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Production Notes
Not Your Superwoman
Written by Emma Dennis-Edwards
Directed by Lynette Linton
Cast
Starring:
Golda Roshuevel
Letitia Wright
Creatives
Director: Lynette Linton
Designer: Alex Berry
Lighting Designer:Jai Morjaria
Composer: Xana
Sound Director: Max Pappenheim
Movement Director: Shelley Maxwell
Information
Running Time: One hour 20 minutes
Booking to !st November 2025
Theatre:
The Bush Theatre
7 Uxbridge Rd
Website:
bushtheatre.co.uk
Tube Shepherd’s Bush Market
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge
at the Bush Theatre
on 16th September 2025