MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds Rosamund Pike’s punchy and tragic portrayal of a multi-tasking mother and high court judge
Latest editorial
Barbed comments
Jellyfish is a pointed drama on attitudes towards disabilities, says MAYER WAKEFIELD
FIONA O CONNOR recommends an unflinching depiction of child sexual abuse and its aftershocks, set in a working-class Liverpool family
New releases from Paul Weller, Wet Leg, and Dino Saluzzi
PAUL DONOVAN relishes the spectacle of a 1950s detective in pursuit of a 500-year-old murder mystery
MARIA DUARTE recommends the intricate study of a high-performance and highly dysfuntional German family
GUILLERMO THOMAS is intrigued by a history of the Middle East that demonstrates how promising post colonial beginnings were snuffed out by Western imperialist interests
Jellyfish
Bush Theatre, London
THE BUSH theatre’s current season goes from strength to strength. After the visceral intensity of Arinze Kene’s Misty and a timely revival of Winsome Pinnock’s Leave Taking comes Ben Weatherill’s touching Jellyfish.
All three plays are authentic and tender explorations of marginalised working-class communities. But where the first two focus on the Afro-Caribbean diaspora in London, Weatherill takes us to the shores of Skegness to bring society’s stigmas around disabilities to the surface.
It's there that the hardened Agnes (Penny Layden) and her bubbly 28-year-old daughter Kelly (Sarah Gordy), who has Down’s syndrome, have settled into an insular and loving pattern of life which is suddenly upset by the arrival of comic-loving arcade supervisor Neil (Ian Bonar) into Kelly’s universe.
More from this author
MAYER WAKEFIELD applauds Rosamund Pike’s punchy and tragic portrayal of a multi-tasking mother and high court judge
![SISTERS IN HARMONY The Company of The ministry Of Lesbian Affairs [Pic Mark Senior]](https://dev.morningstaronline.co.uk/sites/default/files/styles/desktop/public/2025-07/The%20Company%20of%20The%20ministry%20Of%20Lesbian%20Affairs.jpg.webp?itok=47hfE2GG)
MAYER WAKEFIELD relishes a witty and uplifting rallying cry for unity, which highlights the erasure of queer women
MAYER WAKEFIELD laments the lack of audience interaction and social diversity in a musical drama set on London’s Underground
MAYER WAKEFIELD has reservations about the direction of a play centered on a DVLA re-training session for three British-Pakistani motorists
