REVIEWS: Bairns, SEFest at Bridge House 13/14 September

 “entertaining and perceptive” ★★★ ½

In a well observed one woman show, Annie Davison explores how it feels to be a surrogate for your sister. She leads us through the pregnancy addressing the unborn child, who is oddly but quite neatly conflated with the theatre audience through her careful eye contact.

Lottie is witty, sweary and, as time goes on, increasingly attached to the small person she is carrying . It’s a thoughtful exposition of the issues which must, surely, trouble every surrogate mother. The cargo may seem like a foreign body to begin with but eventually hormones will kick in and bonding begins. And, after all the child is legally hers until papers are signed after the birth so she can change her mind at any time.

Davison, who graduated from Drama Centre in 2022, sparkles as she evokes her sister, brother-in-law, father, mother and those she encounters at work in a hospital ante-natal clinic. She has a good ear for accents and voice timbre. Every character in this piece is convincingly brought to life.

It’s generally an entertaining and perceptive 65 minutes with one caveat. So determined is Davison to sound natural that, at times, she hurls herself at it too fast quite often stumbling over her script and it shows, thereby reminding us that this is “just” a play and, to an extent denting the illusion. It could just have been nerves and in a tiny venue with a small audience seeing me there with a pen in my hand may not have helped. This was the second of her three performances at SE Fest 2024 and her debut as a playwright.  

Bairns, written and performed by Annie Davison

Directed by Daniel Bainbridge

Susan Elkin is a journalist and author who has been reviewing theatre for 30 years.