REVIEW: SON OF A BITCH by Anna Morris at Southwark Playhouse, Borough 26 Feb - 15 March 2025

Photography: Steve Gregson

‘a must-see triumph’ ★★★★★

Anna Morris delivers a powerhouse performance in SON OF A BITCH, a sharp, darkly comic, and deeply moving one-woman show that lays bare the raw, unfiltered realities of motherhood. 

Marnie is travelling with her young son on a long flight. What starts as a seemingly mundane plane journey with a misbehaving child quickly spirals into an all-too-relatable nightmare when Marnie, pushed to her absolute limit, utters the unthinkable. Five words - caught on camera and shared across social media – yelled at her son in a fit of rage - becomes the catalyst for global condemnation. As the world vilifies Marnie, denouncing her as a bad mother and a bad person, she tells us her story – revealing the events leading up to the worst moment of her life, and the aftermath. 

Morris masterfully navigates Marnie’s journey from being free and single, to marriage and motherhood, deftly shifting between humour and heartbreak as she unpacks the suffocating expectations placed on women to become mothers and society’s rigid ideals - where motherhood must be a constant state of self-sacrificial bliss - are ruthlessly interrogated. Through Marnie’s gripping monologue, we witness not just the immediate fallout of her meltdown on the plane, but also the lifelong pressures that led to this breaking point: the relentless judgment, the struggle to conceive through IVF, and the underlying assumption that a woman’s worth is intrinsically tied to marriage and motherhood.

Under the expert direction of Madelaine Moore, SON OF A BITCH masterfully ensures that each moment feels immediate and immersive, engaging the entire audience and pulling them into Marnie’s world with an unflinching intimacy. The staging is elegantly minimalist yet striking; a simple plane interior with a lone white seat centre stage – which keeps the focus on Morris’s magnetic presence while subtly reinforcing the play’s themes of scrutiny and isolation.

SON OF A BITCH is a candid exploration of modern parenthood, and the impossible standards to which women are held. The writing is razor-sharp, laced with wit and devastating honesty. Anna Morris delivers a mesmerizing performance, capturing the contradictions of motherhood - love, frustration, devotion, and exhaustion - all with impeccable comic timing and emotional depth. As thought-provoking as it is entertaining, this production is a must-see triumph.

SON OF A BITCH by Anna Morris

Presented by The Thelmas and SideQuest Productions 

Southwark Playhouse, Borough

26 Feb - 15 March 2025

Box Office: https://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/son-of-a-bitch/

Written and Performed by Anna Morris | Directed by Madelaine Moore