The bond of mother-daughter has been stretched to the limit, I think, by changes in women’s lives that are far greater than those in men’s lives in the past 100 years. It’s dramatic. The great thing is that when we become aware of the choices we’ve made, we can change them if we want. And it is never too late to show someone that you love them. I think it’s a play that anyone, any age or gender, can relate to: it’s about family, and ordinary family, working class and middle class characters. And love, how we show it or withhold it; and ambition, what that is in each generation. And it’s both funny and moving, so it’s a play that makes us react – either acting in it or watching it. When I’m writing plays I think about this: I want the audience to laugh and cry and be truly moved, in one evening. I grew up in the 1950's in Essex and my mother told me many nursery rhymes. I remember them all pretty much. He is how she recited the 'my mother said' rhyme, which we played hand-clapping games to. Charlotte Keatley studied drama at the Victoria University of Manchester and as a postgraduate at the University of Leeds. She has worked as a journalist for Performance magazine, the Yorkshire Post, the Financial Times and the BBC. She co-devised and performed in 'Dressing for Dinner', staged at the Theatre Workshop, Leeds, in 1983, and set up the performance art company, Royal Balle, in 1984. She was the Judith E. Wilson Fellow in English at Cambridge University in 1989 and Writer in Residence for the New York Stage and Film Company in 1991.

Recently I cut my leg when out running and a kind woman took me to A&E. The doctor there asked me what I do, and what I write, and it turned out that both women had seen this play – one had read it at school 18 years before – and both loved it. That’s beautiful, the best: when a play adds to someone’s understanding of life; much more important than prizes or fame. And once on a snowy night after a production in America, an old man came up to me, took my hands, and said “Thank you, my whole married life matured tonight”. I was speechless. She co-devised and performed in Dressing for Dinner, staged at the Theatre Workshop, Leeds, in 1983, and set up the performance art company, Royal Balle, in 1984.Below is a snippet from My Mother Said, this is a really great play and in it’s time it was ground breaking. It’s an all female cast. More than 30 years after its premiere, My Mother Never Said I Should is still pertinent. Exhorted to “have it all”, many women remain saddled with the double shift of work and domestic duties, and have to face wrenching decisions about motherhood and career. In this version, fingersmiths also suggests how the lives of deaf women have changed over several generations, adding a new dimension to a much-produced play. The play has a non-chronological and non-linear structure and moves between different places (Manchester, Oldham, and London) and time periods. It presents various episodes in the lives of the four female characters between the 1920s to 1987. It also features scenes set in "the wasteground", where the four characters play together as their child selves in their own contemporary costumes. No, my rule is I must always love every character I write, so I can be sympathetic to each one’s point of view when I’m writing. That makes a better play. And I would act any one of them. I’d actually most like to play Doris, I think I have a very old northern woman inside me – how else could I have written all this age 25?!

What is worrying is that the cost of drama schools and colleges is so high now, we’re getting only a privileged range of young people who can afford to enter theatre. It is the voices of outsiders, especially in playwriting, which break the mould and re-invent theatre, as I did. It’s scary to do, that’s why I’ll run workshops in places in the community if I can, where there may be someone with a new voice who needs to be heard and encouraged. Did you sell lots of your paintings? Did you? You cancelled the opening? I don’t believe you. You’d never do that. This play comes out of watching the new opportunities and pressures on women which I saw in the 1970s and 80s. I had far more choice as a 25-year-old than the 80-year-old woman next door ever had for her life. What would I do? Would I ever manage to be a mother? What relationships would I have? I set about inventing four generations of women who all made different choices. Do you remember how you felt before the very first performance of My Mother Said I Never Should? Can you give us an insight? The theme is one of independence, childhood, growing up, motherhood, death… And secrets where, as in many families, there is one big elephant in the room which must not be divulged until a certain birthday is reached… And it is the consequences of this secret which forms and drives the relationships between the generations.

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London Classic Theatre first produced My Mother Said I Never Should in 2000 to critical acclaim. This revival by one of the UK’s leading touring companies promises to bring the play to life for a new generation. In 2000 Charlotte Keatley’s My Mother Said I Never Should (1988) was chosen as one of the 100 Significant Plays of the twentieth century, by the Royal National Theatre. Charlotte Keatley was Judith E. Wilson Fellow in English at Cambridge University in 1989 and Writer in Residence for the New York Stage and Film Company in 1991. Later that year she co-directed the first production of Heathcote Williams' play Autogeddon at the Edinburgh Festival, where it was awarded an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First.

This ordinary and important fact is at the heart of Charlotte Keatley's play. It is what gives it its universal appeal. And the play's dislocated structure reminds us that the adult carries the baggage of the child. They are the same person. This article needs an improved plot summary. Please help improve the plot summary. ( March 2019) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message) My Mother Said I Never Should is a play that has not only stood the test of time, but continues to be extremely popular. Has the play’s enduring appeal surprised you at all? Why do you think its popularity has continued?

My Mother Said I Never Should' was written in 1985 and first produced in 1987 when it won both the Royal Court/George Devine Award and the Manchester Evening News Theatre Award for Best New Play. Following its publication in 1988, it has been studied as an A-level set text for a number of years and has subsequently been translated into 22 languages. It holds the distinction of being the most performed play in the English language written by a woman. Yet amidst these events, there is nonetheless an undercurrent of humour which lightens the mood somewhat. It is, at the end of the day, a set of circumstances which is instantly recognisable as normal family life and the "ordinariness" of it will strike a chord with the audience. The poignancy of the plot was made even more apparent by the intimacy of Corpus Playroom, the most effective setting to convey the stark conflict between childhood ignorance and the omniscience of hindsight. Director Gabriella Shennan commented on the intentionality behind the staging of the production, explaining how the theatre’s two entrances enabled the play’s non-linearity, while Ioana Dobre’s thoughtful set design served to remind us of the constant intrusion of the past on the present. As parents we wrestle with how much of our own value system to pass on, and are confronted with what we’ve made of our lives, when we bring up a child, or choose not to. This is still a pivotal decision in women’s lives: look how media comment on whether women politicians, Olympic athletes, film stars, company managers etc have children or not, how they manage that or not. Men aren’t defined by this.