Reviews – Be My Baby

Our production By My Baby from April 2025.

Be My Baby is an acclaimed 1998 debut play by celebrated British playwright Amanda Whittington. It is an emotional and hard-hitting drama, dealing with the plight of young unmarried pregnant girls, who were sidestepped by the swinging sixties.

A showing of a short film The Removed precedes the play. The film deals with the lifelong impact on women who were coerced into giving up their newborn babies in the unforgiving British society of past times. The film’s running time is only a few minutes, but it leaves a lasting and powerful impression of historical great injustice and persisting relevance in today’s world.

The film segways seamlessly into Be My Baby, which is set in 1964, with an upbeat soundtrack of great music from that time. Nice, middle-class 19-year-old Mary Adams – seven months pregnant and no immediate prospect of marrying her medical student boyfriend – has been dispatched by her neurotic mother to have the baby in secret and shame at an austere Church of England home for unmarried mothers-to-be. Mary shares a room with street-wise Queenie and both of them are assigned to the laundry to work with naïve Delores and gullible Norma – all young, pregnant and extremely vulnerable.  The four of them are supportive of each other and become friends over a mutual love of records by The Ronettes and similar pop vocal groups. These songs give comfort and encouragement to them. However, when Mary learns her baby is to be taken at birth for adoption, she desperately struggles to withstand the pressure she is under from her mother and the Church to give up the child.

The play opens with Mary and Mrs Adams arriving at the home and meeting the Matron in her office. Mary, superbly played by Sarah Derry, is naturally nervous and scared of what will happen to her. Claire Martin, is very effective in the part of anguished middle-class Mrs Adams, and her embarrassment about Mary’s undesirable situation and her wish to get away from the home as quickly as possible, is palpable. The Matron, authentically and skillfully played by Nikki Shepard, initially appears to be hide-bound by rules and procedure, (but softens and reveals genuine empathy and compassion as the play develops, whilst ensuring the required outcome is achieved).

The other three girls are soon introduced to proceedings, they are all very likeable characters and deserving of sympathy for their predicaments – even the nonchalant and gritty Queenie – played by Clare Green, who delivers a standout performance and has most of the funny, though often sarcastic, lines. In many ways, Queenie is the complete counterpart of Mary, but apart from their taste in music they do have at least one other thing in common, and they become firm friends. Dolores is an endearing character – cheeky, immature and completely lacking in life skills. Lynnette Barnes plays the part of Dolores perfectly. George Cotterill plays Norma, who has been led astray by an unscrupulous married man, and she is completely convincing when she unexpectedly goes into labour and subsequently suffers a breakdown after her baby is taken away.

Overall, the entire cast play their parts fantastically well and they deliver slick performances with hardly a glitch along the way. They were able to do this because they are clearly accomplished actors, supported by a talented and effective technical crew, who built a terrific stage and synchronized the sound effects and lighting with precision. The period costumes, especially the girl’s blue maternity smocks, were spot on too. The Director, Sophie Townsend, is deserving of special mention as her deft touches have interpreted the script in an original way with great empathy.

This production is Am Dram theatre at its best, as demonstrated by the overheard discussions amongst members of the fully engaged audience during the interval and at the end.

https://sceneoneplus.com/be-my-baby/

IN the years since Amanda Whittington’s play Be My Baby was first seen in Salisbury in 2004, there has been growing awareness of the misery and trauma caused to mothers and children by the estimated 215,000 “forced adoptions” over 30 years after the Second World War, and the increased popularity of TV shows and DNA sites has led to open and shame-free explorations of genetic histories. There are calls for a state apology for the policies that led to women and their babies being separated forever.

The Salisbury Studio Theatre production of the play, on until Saturday, starts with the screening of The Removed, a short film by Rebecca Rose. Starring Call the Midwife’s Georgie Glen, it is the story of a woman whose son was taken from her at his birth, searching for traces of him in the woods where she played as a child. It is profoundly moving and is the perfect introduction to the play, which is set in a Church of England mother-and-baby home in 1964.

Sarah Derry plays Mary, a well brought up only child of older parents, pregnant by her medical student boyfriend. Determined not to let “Dad” know, her mother (Claire Martin) pretends Mary has gone to help an injured aunt, and takes her to St Saviour’s home, ruled by a no-nonsense matron ( Nikki Shepherd). There Mary meets the worldly wise Queenie (Clare Green), the innocent and childish Dol (Lynnette Barnes) and the doting and confused Norma (George Cotterill). They take what pleasure they can, while doing seemingly endless laundry, by “being up the duff together”, and to a soundtrack of 60s hits, all promising sentimental, faithful and romantic love.

It is hard in 2025 for younger members of the audience to imagine the anguish and shame that accompanied illegitimate birth, as recently as the 1970s, when a “single parent” was a very unusual creature, and one to be pitied and scorned.

Sophie Townsend makes her directing debut with Whittington’s play, bringing out the humanity of the matron and perhaps altering the balance of the play, without the cruelty that often accompanies the authority figures in some similar stories – perhaps Call the Midwife has changed our perceptions, as long as we are not the people who lived through these personal, private sufferings.

The playwright emphasises the youthful inexperience of her mothers-to-be, suddenly confronted with unwelcome, and apparently inescapable reality. That confusion and fear is particularly well characterised by Lynnette Barnes and George Cotterill, with Clare Green’s Queenie a recognisably big-hearted girl fated to always make the wrong choices. Sarah Derry’s Mary is determined, frustrated and unwilling to accept the reality of her situation, which is calmly and not-unkindly set out by the matron. Claire Martin’s Mrs Adams was just SO like the mothers of many of my school friends, scared of their husbands, their neighbours and their lives …. and just carrying on. It’s a very British play.

The Fine Times Recorder: https://www.theftr.co.uk/be-my-baby-studio-theatre-salisbury/

Review from Inside Salisbury (video and written): https://insidesalisbury.substack.com/p/studio-theatre-review-be-my-baby