Writer Danny James King’s new play Miss Myrtle’s Garden will keep the Bush Theatre in bloom all throughout Pride Month — and it’s a blessing, because this is a production that merits more than one watch.
From the outset, the audience is endeared to Miss Myrtle, a fiery-tongued Jamaican grandmother, who seemingly only has one mission: to keep her garden in order. With her chirpy husband, her Gen-Z grandson and his ‘friend’ Jason, and the well-meaning local man with a fondness for drink on hand to help, it shouldn’t be too difficult. However, the struggle to tame her garden represents a deeper, darker battle against family secrets, grief and her declining memory.
Just like the contrast between Miss Myrtle’s neat, colourful daffodils and the overgrown weeds amongst them, the play flits between moments of hilarity and heartbreak. This jarring pace, coupled with intelligent sound and lighting design, takes the audience on an emotional journey that spans the warmth of quiet family moments to the disorientation of the dementia experience.
What truly makes the emotional whiplash of Miss Myrtle’s Garden so powerful is its cast, who do an excellent job of making us care about these characters. Michael Ahomka-Lindsay and Elander Moore are effortlessly relatable as the young couple, Rudy and Jason. Their relationship shines a light on the complicated intersections between race, LGBTQ+ identity and intergenerational grief and trauma.
Mensah Bediako and Gary Lilburn are delightful in their portrayal of Miss Myrtle’s companions, mellowing her sharpness whilst also delicately portraying the joy and the loneliness of growing old. The fact the play has both a dementia consultant and an intimacy choreographer is significant — through fleeting expressions, touches and moments of connection, the cast conveys the play’s emotional subtleties. This is especially true for Diveen Henry in the role of the show’s title character, Miss Myrtle.
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As Miss Myrtle, Henry becomes a grandmother to the entire audience. The actor nails the sass and comedic timing that all grandmothers naturally seem to possess, while embodying the role of an ageing loved one so masterfully that the audience grieves her fading memory alongside the characters.
This blurring of the lines between audience and cast is helped by the intimacy of the Bush’s Holloway Theatre. Sitting in the round, the audience feels like nosey neighbours watching through a crack in the garden fence.
That crack in the fence is perhaps Miss Myrtle’s Garden’s only drawback. Miss Myrtle asks, “If you was look through crack in a door and you could see ten faces, would you think there’s ten people or one hundred?” During the play, we see those metaphorical ‘ten people’, but Danny James King has created a rich world, with characters, themes and histories that could use longer than just two hours to be explored. The play has layers that might be missed with only one watch, but as Miss Myrtle loves to say, “mi go out just to come back.” And this is a play well worth coming back to.
Listings and ticket information can be found here.
