Moving, challenging production

Last evening's South Canterbury Drama League's opening night in the Little Theatre of Jennifer Kewley Draskau's play deserved a larger audience, and congratulations must go to Rebecarca Curtis for directing her cast in such a moving, challenging production.

With only three women onstage, in an unchanging set reflecting a Liverpool sitting room in jingoistic 1917, the acting has to carry more of a message than any physical action, yet this is a thought-provoking play that clearly portrayed the suffering of that era.

Elizabeth Watkins-Grubb, as Nana, the world-weary matriarch with some unusual strategies to cope with the harsh realities of life during WW1, has a commanding stage presence – despite her night attire.

As her daughter Rose, eternally anxious Lisa Thomson is suspicious of her mother's motives and pragmatism, perhaps due to her staunch Catholic faith, and her loss on learning of her man's death aboard the RMS Lusitania on the high seas is vivid.

Ngaire Elder, the youngest scouse of the trio, grand-daughter of Nana, and the "Immaculate O'Shea" of the title, has her own special concerns, and her mixture of young love and self-pity is portrayed keenly right near the end.

All three speak convincingly in the Liverpudlian accent, if at times at low volumes, but their emotions and the play's ideas, of dealing with loss and ageing and just getting on with life whatever it throws at you, come across convincingly and firmly.

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