The Soon Life

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Playing until 18th October 2025

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Photo credit: Suzi Corker

{PR Gifted ticket}

Feared of COVID infection and its disproportionate effect on ethnic minority groups, Bec (Phoebe McIntosh, also writer) decides to have a home birth with the support of a midwife than going to the hospital. Unexpectedly, her ex-boyfriend and father of the child, Alex (Joe Boylan) turns up at her doorstep on her due date. As labour contractions begin and her midwife is nowhere in sight, the two must put their differences aside to deliver the baby.

McIntosh’s script carefully navigates sarcasm, humour and emotional turmoil of the characters. In particular, the awkwardness between Bec an Alex is evident and uncomfortable at times, creating a level of realism to the characters’ situation. With Sarah Meadows’s direction and movement design by Tian Brown-Sampson, the play brings the slow and painful process of childbirth to light.

It is often the final stages of labour that is most often presented, when the mother delivers the baby, but The Soon Life sheds light and focuses on the earlier phases for a good proportion of the play. In these earlier stages, contraction is irregular and mild and can last from hours to days. The peaks and troughs of Bec and Alex’s conversations mirror the intensity of Bec’s contractions, throwing both Alex and the audience off as climatic arguments quickly become mellow, as if the actors are conveying Bec’s pain through the exchange of dialogue between the two characters.  

The lighting and sound designs by Alex Musgrave and Beth Duke, respectively, complement McIntosh and Boylan’s reactions, with Meadows bringing these individual creative components together to transport audience between the different phases of Labour. The hastening and pounding of heartbeats becoming ever clearer with each contraction.

While the frequent pacing of the characters around Bec’s flat could build tension as the parents eagerly await the next stages of labour, these are used perhaps too frequently and often times led to a sudden cessation of pain and the accompanying argument. Although it is appreciated that this reflects the irregularity and unpredictability of childbirth, it also dampens the built-up intensity and takes the audience out of the moment.

McIntosh in the role of Bec is sarcastic and shows clear resentment towards Alex’s departure months before. While she holds up a strong exterior that pushes Alex away, she also shows moments of vulnerability as the pain she experiences intensify. Boylan’s performance was on point, portraying a character who is clearly lost, full of panic even when instructed with what to do. No matter one’s experience with childbirth, it is likely most non-professionals will react in a similar way to this and Boylan has captured these traits with finesse.  These two wonderful actors are able to evolve with their characters, putting aside their differences and embrace their new lives and overflowing tranquillity as they hold their baby in their arms.

The Soon Life doesn’t just showcase the challenges and celebrates the arrival of a new life into the world, but also highlights the evolution that parents undergo as they adapt to their new situations.

Creatives

Writer: Phoebe McIntosh

Director: Sarah Meadows

Set and Costume Design: Sarah Beaton

Lighting Design: Alex Musgrave

Composition and Sound Design: Beth Duke

Movement Director and Intimacy Coordinator: Tian Brown-Sampson