Edinburgh Fringe: With Child

With Child
PLEASANCE COURTYARD
pleasance.co.uk / @ClareRebekah
31 JUL – 25 AUG (NOT 14TH AUGUST)
3:30PM (1 hour)

by Bernie C Byrnes

With Child is a series of six ten-minute “talking heads” style monologues, which invite audiences to take a glimpse at the everyday lives of six characters who refuse to be defined by their pregnancies.

Writer and performer Clare Pointing performed With Child as a work in progress throughout her own pregnancy allowing the show to evolve – growing and developing alongside her baby. What’s interesting though, is that none of the characters talk about being pregnant – they just are; deal with it. There’s none of the usual in-depth soul-searching or obsessing about food and clothes. It’s a refreshing approach to a condition that the world and her wife tends to have an opinion on.

Each monologue is well constructed, beautifully performed and could easily be developed into a full one-man show, particularly three and six. Pointing is a woman of many voices. Where it fell down for me though was the lack of over-arching narrative. If the women had been linked in some way (other than being pregnant and not talking about it of course) then it would have given it the small piece of structure that seemed to be missing. Even something as abstract as them seeing each other across a room or a street and commenting on the character coming up would have provided a welcome thread to string these gems onto.

Pointing for sure captures snapshots of modern living and boy does she know how to play the sub-text well.