Writer: Milanka Brooks
Producer and Director: Ben Cavey
There are a lot of one-person shows at the Fringe, many of which tell of personal histories and family backgrounds. This one is special. Actress Milanka Brooks puts a huge amount of energy into her performance, brilliantly evoking her flamboyant Serbian mother Lela, sometimes in a one-actor dialogue, equally skillfully suggesting her own, very different, personality. Where necessary, she fills in with other characters as well, so this is a very versatile turn.
We’re welcomed into the performance space and offered tots of Lela’s favourite tipple, a strong Serbian drink made from plums, whose producers have stepped up and sponsored the show.
Lela landed in London aged eighteen, we’re told, in the Sixties. Perhaps her sense of adventure never left her, rather as her accent didn’t, as she seems to have grasped life with both hands, regardless of what she was carrying. She would knock four times for luck, a habit that becomes a motif in the show.
As we learn more about her, we get the sense of someone who was mortifyingly overbearing, yet endearing nonetheless. The show appears to operate on that particular knife-edge, and Milanka knows how to extract maximum laughs from the situations she describes. It’s funny, but it’s also candid and relatable. In one sequence, we’re told how Lela would seize upon newly learned English words and insist on applying them, whether or not they made sense in a sentence.
By telling her mum’s story, Milanka is also telling us about a childhood with colourful and creative parents, people who were none too concerned with the niceties of actually paying the bills. In their adult relationship, Lela continually gives her daughter unwanted pep talks about how to catch a man. It appears that, the more Milanka becomes disillusioned with conventional romance, the more her mother makes outlandish suggestions.
In one hilarious scene, Milanka is obliged to film her mum demonstrating her exercise routine for the benefit of the online community. Naturally, she portrays both roles in all their contrasting, exasperating, messed-up glory.
Overall, this is a show with plenty of heart that unpacks, deconstructs and reconstructs situations that happened in the past – only this time it’s Milanka who’s truly in charge.
Runs until 25 August 2024 | Image: Contributed
The Reviews Hub Score
Touching and funny
