Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Backstroke is, of course, the ingenious art of propelling yourself forwards by moving backwards. And, in essence, that is what Bo (Tamsin Greig) has to do in Anna Mackmin\u2019s new play of the same name. When her mother, Beth (Celia Imrie), is hospitalised by a serious stroke, Bo is pitched into a turbulent pool of memories of their fraught relationship \u2014 a history that has left her struggling to connect with her own, adopted, daughter. It will take trawling through the past to help her face the future.As with Mackmin\u2019s earlier novel, Devoured, the story is drawn partly from her own childhood in a 1970s commune. It\u2019s rich with questions about motherhood, about child carers, dementia, death and about the ties that can bind us even in the most difficult relationships. But for all its resonance and heartfelt candour, and despite terrific, emotionally raw performances from Greig and Imrie, it struggles to stay afloat.We first meet Greig\u2019s Bo issuing abrupt orders to the nursing staff not to feed her mother, who lies motionless in the bed. They are taken aback by Bo\u2019s insistence, and it looks as though an exploration of the multiple issues around end-of-life care might evolve. But the play leaves that and jumps, with Bo, into her memories, whisking both mother and daughter to an earlier stage of their relationship in Beth\u2019s chaotic kitchen downstage. Suddenly Imrie\u2019s Beth springs into prickly, sparky life as a needling, needy bohemian, who drifts about in an ancient kaftan, makes woven sculptures, and torments her daughter with put-downs and demands.It\u2019s a pattern that will be repeated many times in Mackmin\u2019s production, each time visiting a different period and shading in a little more about their relationship. We watch Beth manipulate her way into accompanying teenaged Bo to university (\u201cI\u2019ll only bring this tiny travelling loom\u201d), belittle her appearance, her cooking and her personal problems, and spill out graphic details about her own sex life. It\u2019s soon clear that Beth has agoraphobia and that Bo has been mothering her from an early age \u2014 at one point even driving her to the seaside at the age of 13. \u00a0Some of their waspish exchanges are very funny and have a ring of authenticity, with Imrie\u2019s Beth blithely scattering cigarette ash along with her outrageous opinions, and Greig\u2019s Bo speaking volumes about her rage and despair with just the tiniest sideways glance. Meanwhile the screen above the stage in Lez Brotherston\u2019s set slides open to offer glimpses of more tender moments beside the sea or the pool \u2014 touching on an unconventional swimming lesson that gives the play its title and that explains a deeper bond between the two \u2014 or carries splintered videos of Bo\u2019s most harrowing memories.There\u2019s so much here that feels true and worthy of exploration, and Greig and Imrie impressively flash forwards and backwards in time, showing you the younger character inside the older and vice versa. But the offstage daughter and her father never feel quite real and the nurses and doctor are sketchily drawn. In the end, the sheer weight of issues and the fragmented, repetitive structure work against the play \u2014 just as a too frantic backstroke can impede your progress.\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606To April 12, donmarwarehouse.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Backstroke is, of course, the ingenious art of propelling yourself forwards by moving backwards. And, in essence, that is what Bo (Tamsin Greig) has to do<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":219435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219434"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":219436,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219434\/revisions\/219436"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}