2022 Edinburgh Fringe

The premise

Angela Jackson imagines a conversation between herself and her dead mother in this poignant and often hilarious one-woman show. They catch up on lost time, covering everything from what exactly constitutes a proper salad and the price of international magazine subscription rates, to the perils of driving at night without glasses. No longer a victim of domestic violence, Angela's mum is transformed into a self-possessed and witty tour de force in this moving portrait of an enduring mother daughter relationship.

More details

A few weeks after Angela Jackson's seventh birthday, her mum died. It was a languid, hot summer. The middle of the school holidays. One day, Angela was practising cartwheels with her friends on the patch of grass outside her house. The next, she was, effectively, muted. Stilled.

As a child who thrived on facts and clear information, the local vicar's muddled story about how her mum was "an angel now" made no sense to her. And questions to the adults in her life were invariably met with sobs. So she stopped asking. Stopped talking. And this has been her go-to strategy ever since.

At the first sign of trouble, she has resorted to clamming up. She tells nobody about the ensuing horrors of her childhood; she silently endures extreme workplace practices that almost lead to a miscarriage and end in the premature delivery of her baby; she allows herself to be publicly humiliated at a book festival where she wins a prestigious international award; she scrabbles to deliver a university course she soon realises she's unqualified to teach. She is silently drowning. Finally, she admits she needs help.

After a year of psychotherapy, she now understands herself better, and is more able to speak out. So, naturally, she's written a one-woman show about it. This moving, visceral and laugh-out-loud show, featuring beyond the grave insights from philosopher Epictetus and recipe tips from Nora Ephron, explores Angela's psychological journey to better mental health via an imaginary conversation with the ghost of her mum and other key characters from her life.

It is, at its heart, a resounding and heartfelt rally cry to anyone who's ever felt like they weren't good enough or has hesitated to stand up to bullies, elitists, predators, terrible exes and rogue hairdressers.

About Angela Jackson

Angela Jackson is a former psychology lecturer, an award-winning writer, and tutor in Creative Writing for Open College of the Arts. She lives and works in Edinburgh.