Review – Water Child

Where to start? There is always something to applaud about a production that raises awareness of health and social issues. Unfortunately Water Child doesn’t quite succeed as a Fringe play. This is partly due to its length, it runs nearly two hours with no interval, which is far too long. Particularly for Fringe where the expectation is to ‘keep it short, sharp, to the point and not much over an hour’. The other main problem is that it became, very quickly, predictable.

Fortunately most of us cannot even begin to imagine the pain associated with fertility problems and the inability to have a child. Water Child centres around a couple who may have ‘left it too late’, she concentrated on building her career but now the clock is ticking very loudly and a couple of miscarriages later she is, once again, pregnant. The obvious happens, and it’s her 40th birthday too, just to rub salt into her wounds. Husband reacts by leaving because it’s not too late for him. Various people react with their take on things, too many kids (sister), not easily able to have kids because you need a man (lesbian friend), had kids too young (Mum). All are valid but I wonder if they ended up cluttering the central issue, that at the end of the day it’s purely between the couple trying to conceive. There were some strong performances but also some rather weak ones, perhaps, with a good trim and some cast changes Water Child might be a better play.