The Soon Life by Phoebe McIntosh.

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Labour in the time of lockdown: The Soon
Life comes to Southwark Playhouse Borough

Press Night: Friday 3rd October 2025, 7:30pm


This autumn, a bold, bitingly funny and deeply human play, The Soon Life, from writer and
performer Phoebe McIntosh, will debut at Southwark Playhouse Borough. Set during lockdown
in a London flat, the play unfolds in real-time to explore the messy intersections of motherhood,
relationships and identity in an authentic and unapologetic presentation of childbirth.
At the heart of The Soon Life is a woman facing a life-changing event with honesty, humour, and
a potty-mouthed resilience. The production follows Bec, a dancer in her thirties, in the midst of
labour at home. Alone - by choice and by circumstance - she paces, breathes, and swears her
way through contractions, determined to keep calm, composed and in control until her
estranged ex, Alex, shows up. Amid the tens machine and the Moses basket, Bec attempts to
maintain her composure while navigating the intensifying stages of labour and the emotional
landmines of her broken relationship.
With its naturalistic setting, physical storytelling and caustic humour, The Soon Life delivers a
gripping, fly-on-the-wall portrait of a couple on the cusp of change. This dynamic two-hander is
a timely and raw exploration of what we carry and what we must let go of in order to move
forward.
Writer and performer Phoebe McIntosh comments, Writing this play after the birth of my first
daughter felt like the best way to reflect on what is, simply put, a landmark memory. It was an
opportunity to acknowledge the challenges childbirth involved for me personally while thinking
more broadly about the myriad versions of birth there are and how the experience touches
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everyone differently. This production feels like an opportunity to raise awareness of modern birth
in a very different way. Everything it entails - heightened emotion, jeopardy, physicality, life,
death, aural, visual and felt sensations for mother, baby and bystanders is brought into focus. It
is my hope that the play moves, provokes and inspires those who see it, especially those who
least expect it to.
Five years on from the pandemic and winning the Highly Commended Prize at Soho Theatre’s
Tony Craze Awards 2020, The Soon Life presents an emotional unravelling wrapped in real-time
contractions, where time, pain and memory blur into something powerful and profoundly
human. At a watershed moment for maternity services in the UK, with failings and scandals
frequently reported in the press, McIntosh’s writing honours the realities of labour in all its
unpredictability, while also confronting the emotional truths that so often remain buried. While
many depictions of birth are relegated to off-stage or played for comic and dramatic effect, The
Soon Life brings it unapologetically to the forefront.

Press Night: Friday 3rd October 2025

Show Times 7.30pm / 3pm matinee on Saturdays and Tuesdays (5 matinees
scheduled, Tuesdays are relaxed performances ideal for parents
and babies)


Prices £10 Pioneers’ Preview (1st October)
£16 previews
£22 standard / £18 concessions (Monday to Wednesday)
£26 standard / £21 concessions (Thursday to Saturday)
Running Time 90 minutes, no interval
Age Guidance 16+
Trigger Warnings Nudity, references to abortion, baby loss and childbirth.
Depiction of a birth on stage.

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Venue

The Little, Southwark Playhouse, Borough,
77-85 Newington Causeway,
London
SE1 6BD

More details for this venue

Dates

The event runs from 19:30 to 22:00 on the following dates.
Select a date to add this event to your calendar app.