Edinburgh festival: Motherland

4 / 5 stars
Underbelly, Edinburgh
Charlotte Binns and Helen Embleton in Motherland
Charlotte Binns and Helen Embleton in Motherland. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod Murdo Macleod/Guardian

This year's Fringe has already produced a superb verbatim theatre play in Deep Cut, but that is topped by Motherland, a piece produced by Newcastle's Live Theatre that eavesdrops on the stories of the mothers, daughters, sisters and lovers of soldiers sent to Iraq. It is just like popping into someone's kitchen to have a cup of tea and a chat.

There is tragedy, anger and guilt in these stories. Elsie's daughter, Sharon, was an intelligence officer whose boat was bombed as they passed under a pontoon where dozens of other army boats passed each day. Why wasn't it made secure from terrorist attack? Janice's son Michael, whom she wouldn't let join the Metropolitan police because she thought it was too dangerous, came home from Iraq in bits, and she mulls on the fact that she wasn't able to protect him when he needed her. Such is the power of mother love demonstrated here that you imagine it could indeed render bombs harmless through sheer force of will.

But along with the despair and the sly wit ("There were no weapons of mass destruction." "Yes there were: George Bush and Tony Blair") there is also genuine laughter and memories that glow in the dark. The pleasure of this piece is that, unlike a great deal of verbatim theatre which is issue-based and tells you what you already know, this is entirely about the personal. As a result it is all the more revealing, because it offers up not just a snapshot of the state of the nation, but more importantly the state of the nation's hearts. Its immense power lies in its utter no-frills ordinariness.

Like all interesting theatre, Motherland also does more than it sets out to. The link between these women is that they have all had, or have, loved ones in Iraq, and that is the impetus to get them talking. What tumbles out is a moving and complex picture of family relationships and what it means to be a mother, a sister, or a daughter.

There's the woman in her 60s whose 89-year-old mother still rules the roost, the mother and daughter who talk over each other, the sister still working through her relationship with her brother. Everyday life has never been quite as riveting as it is in this honest, beautifully produced little show.