REVIEW: ⭐⭐ Backstroke (2025)📍Donmar Warehouse
An insightful-yet-flawed play which falls into the mundanity of aging, quite possibly a bit too close to reality for many and achieves only a modicum of sincerity.
By Hamza Jahanzeb
27 March 2025
Memories and mothers are the central subject of Anna Mackmin’s debut play Backstroke at the Donmar Warehouse. It centers on the lives of two women, what it means to experience mental health in later life and an intense study of motherhood. I must emphasise this from the off-set: it isn’t a cheery play, the majority of which is set at the bedside of Beth (played superbly in this role by Celia Imrie) but also in the home of the AGA cooker-owner and her Bohemian cottage.