Mama Does Derby is where Ab Fab, Starlight Express, Inside Out 2 and a real-time family therapy lightbulb moment collide, guided into being by a great band and a rocking soundtrack.
The story follows Maxine (Amber McMahon) as a single mum with a troubled ex in her past, and an easy way of picking up new boyfriends, starting life in a new town with teenage daughter Billie (Elvy-Lee Quici), where both try to find a new way to fit in.
Mum plays the chaotic foil to Billie, the parentified daughter who pays the bills and can’t sleep properly. In a departure from the normal tone of how these relaltionships are depicted in art, instead of them fighting over details when they come together, à la Edina and Saffy in Absolutely Fabulous, they buddy up and both seam to be happiest in each others company. There’s a sense that mum might be putting some of her scatterbrained antics on to keep the dynamic going, as she sneaks off to find her own release in secret at the local roller derby, and enter the roller skates!
The Sydney Town Hall seating was pushed to the sides to make way for a skating rink, and members of the local Sydney Derby League hurtled around throughout the show, their prowess on wheels and current competitions an entertaining and visually spectacular way to tie the scenes together, and an ingenious way to move the complicated set pieces around. When Starlight Express came out everyone said rollerskates and theatre don’t mix, and Mama Does Derby has proved the naysayers wrong once again.
What is terrific in the production is the band. Joe Paradise Lui, bassist Calliope Jackson and drummer Antione Jelk, who also has acting roles in the play as a driving instructor neighbour, make the night, their mini stage which is charmingly set in a bathroom moves around the stage and keeps everyone bopping along with classic hit cover and great musical talent.
The movie Inside Out 2 made characters of feelings, and one of the standout characters in Mama Does Derby is Billie’s Demon. Her anxiety and adolescent night-light requiring insomnia is given physical form not in the cartoonish way of the movie, but in a black sparking and slinky catsuit, played by Benjamin Hancock who slithers out from under the bend and acrobatically manoeuvres around the bed frame to funny and meaningful effect.
Writer and actress Virginia Gay, who won the 2024 Scotsman First Fringe Award for Outstanding New Writing for her play Cyrano, has created a fun new show that will do very well on the festival circuit and beyond. Conceived and directed by Windmill’s Clare Watson, it may even peak a new interest in roller derby, and Irresistible are certainly considering getting our old skates on.
Mama Does Derby
Sydney Town Hall
483 George Street NSW 2000
