Poor Baby. She’s in real trouble, and it all started with her name — which “means you’ll never seem old, even when you are: you’ll always bring hope, even when there’s none.” Hope, eh? Growing up, she’s had a life of problems. Starting with her mother, who suffered from abusive relationships, substance abuse and sexual exploitation. Baby is her mother’s daughter, inheriting many of the same problems. Hope, eh? But now she has a baby of her own, called Bliss, and she wants to break the cycle of pain. After all, she is not just a victim — she has talents and qualities. And she’s still young. Hope, yeah.
This is the set up of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s 80-minute one-woman show, Baby, a coproduction between Brixton House and Clean Break theatre company, which specializes in work with women who have lived experience of the criminal justice system. Written with economy and speed, the play gives a snapshot of a life lived under extreme duress. At first, Bhatti takes care to avoid some of the clichés of being bought up in poverty: her Baby is a bright and imaginative child, who does well at school, but finds having to care for her addicted mother really challenging — especially when, as a young teen, she has to trade sex for drugs for her mum.
When Baby begins a relationship with a very cool older boy at first things go well. They have a great rapport, he is charming and she enjoys the pleasures of classy bars and restaurants. Things look good. And then they don’t. He’s arrested for various criminal activities, and she is involved as an accessory. Both of them go to jail. In prison, she gives birth to Bliss, their daughter, and then her problems multiply: there are scenes with a rotation of social workers, trouble getting somewhere of her own to live and the constant need for money. Okay, her mum manages to get clean, and finds religion. But poverty is as much a prison as, well, prison.
Baby’s need to be a good mother to Bliss is a constant theme, and provides much of the emotional fuel of the show. Bhatti’s writing sketches out familiar social issues, such as the violence of the criminal justice system (with suicidal inmates depending more on the compassion of whoever shares their cell than on the prison staff), the inadequacies of the probation service (with its underpaid and overworked officers) and the exploitative casual jobs market (with its low wages and poor working conditions). But the writing is also rather ambiguous, allowing the audience to fill in the gaps, mercifully avoiding some of the grosser details of an impoverished and agonized life.
The risk is that this everyday situation of growing up with few advantages, whether social or familial, might suggest a kind of victim blaming: yes, it’s all the fault of Baby’s mother, who is probably an addict because of her mother’s bad parenting, and of course Baby is doomed to fail as a mother too. But Bhatti swerves away from such easy moralizing, and emphasizes Baby’s optimism, her youthful energy, and our responsibility — at least in the safe space of the theatre — to stand up for those who are disadvantaged. So while it is tempting to look away from the acute problems of the poor, Baby encourages us to question such indifference.
The script directly addresses the audience, who are positioned as witnesses to Baby’s life, tasked with representing her to the authorities and advocating for her in her hour of need: “tell them for me and for all the other Babys.” The cruel details of sexual abuse, grooming by an older man, coercive control and the desperate struggle to get Bliss back from a foster family are vividly written. But there is a lot of humour too. Jokes about Britain’s Got Talent, and references to Timothée Chalamet, Benjamin Netanyahu, EastEnders, Treasure Island, Airbnb, WhatsApp groups, and lobster thermidor raise many smiles, and a few laughs.
Bhatti’s other voices include Baby’s mother, boyfriend, women friends, teachers, social workers, a posh schoolfriend who inspires her to read Rimbaud and Verlaine and so on. In Mili Bhatia’s heartfelt production, which stars Doctor Who’s Pearl Mackie on designer Khadija Raza’s simple set, this is a very focused and energy-rich reading of the story. Mackie is extremely engaging, often funny, sometimes tragic, always passionate in her emotionally detailed delivery. The props, which appear like magic from behind the stage’s curtains, are a joy: they include a pink doll, a pair of pink kid’s trainers, a toy pink stroller, a balloon, a muffin with a single birthday candle and a school drawing. Delightful, but it’s Makie who makes sure the audience pays attention to the content of this excellent and powerful drama.
- Baby is at Brixton House until 31 October.
This post was written by the author in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.
This post was written by Aleks Sierz.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.