The reviews are in for Baby, Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s new one-woman play at Brixton House, co-produced with Clean Break and directed by Milli Bhatia, which had its press night on Wednesday 14 October. Pearl Mackie plays Baby, a young woman fighting to keep her daughter after prison, and every other character in her life. The notices are warm and remarkably consistent: no critic goes below three stars, and the praise for Mackie is unanimous. The disagreement is about how far the writing digs into what made Baby who she is, with The Guardian, WhatsOnStage and Afridiziak wanting more depth than the play allows.
The verdict: ten reviews in, and every one of them gives a rating: six four-star notices and four at three stars (The Stage among them), an average of 3.6 out of 5. Every critic singles out Pearl Mackie, who plays Baby and everyone else in her story; where they part company is over the script, which several feel races through Baby’s traumas rather than sitting with them.
What are critics saying about BABY?
Everything Theatre
Reviewer: Mary Pollard
Mary Pollard calls the play an urgent call to arms and finds Pearl Mackie gripping from the first moment, funny and charismatic before the performance stretches across every emotion. She praises Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s sensory, lyrical writing and the way Milli Bhatia’s direction conjures a whole cast of characters out of a handful of empty chairs. It is a hard watch in places, she warns, given the abuse and violence the story covers.
“Baby is a challenging but hugely informative and emotional piece of work that resounds with authenticity.”
All That Dazzles
Reviewer: Sam Waite
Sam Waite admires how much Khadija Raza’s pastel-yellow set and Bethany Gupwell’s lighting achieve with very little, and calls Mackie’s work exceptional from start to finish. The gaps in Baby’s story, such as the exact reason for her sentence, are read as trust in the audience rather than a flaw. Some viewers, the critic concedes, may feel the play does not push deep enough.
“Like its titular heroine, Baby is beautiful and brilliant, if a bit rough around the edges.”
North West End
Reviewer: Zandra Odetunde
Zandra Odetunde finds that one performer is more than enough: Mackie’s accents give each person in Baby’s story a distinct identity, and Bhatti’s dark comedy had the audience laughing out loud. The reservations are small ones, a couple of stumbles over words and music in Elena Peña’s sound design that sometimes competes with the performance.
“Baby is often very funny and deeply touching, carried by a performance that makes its small stage feel alive with possibility.”
Liam O’Dell
"Pearl Mackie is persuasive as struggling post-prison mother"
Reviewer: Liam O’Dell
Liam O’Dell notes a striking maturity in Mackie’s Baby and a remarkable sense of place in the way she fills the stage with people who are not there. He enjoys the buttery set and Gupwell’s glowing lighting, though he found the plot hard to follow at points, with some of its ambiguity costing clarity. That confusion, he says, does not detract from the performance.
“…she proves herself to her audience, in a sobering piece of theatre.”
Theatre and Tonic
Reviewer: Bronagh
For Bronagh, Mackie comes into her own once Baby gives birth in prison, and the scenes with her daughter, Bliss, brought her close to tears. The critic would have liked more time on Baby’s relationship with her mother, feeling that parts of the story are glossed over in a run of traumatic incidents, but calls the whole a brilliant production.
“I genuinely felt tears prick in my eyes, and heard a few sniffles throughout the theatre.”
Theatre, Art and Film Reviews
Reviewer: Alan Fitter
Alan Fitter is frank that the story covers familiar ground, from the deprived childhood to the coercive partner and prison, and finds some of the humour forced. What lifts it, in his view, is Mackie’s charismatic turn, in which Baby keeps an outward brightness that lets glimpses of the damage show beneath the smile. He thought the standing ovation fully deserved.
“What elevates Baby from cliché is the wonderful, luminous performance from Pearl Mackie.”
Read Alan Fitter’s full review at Theatre, Art and Film Reviews
The Guardian
"Pearl Mackie is meticulous as an abuse survivor"
Reviewer: Holly O’Mahony
Holly O’Mahony calls the play compassionate and Mackie meticulous, carrying Baby from a bright child caring for her mother to a young woman behind bars. Her reservation is the character’s almost constant smile under Bhatia’s direction: she longed for a more guttural response to the turmoil, and felt the roughest ordeals were skipped over.
“…creating the sense we’re watching the diluted, censored version of a darker story.”
WhatsOnStage
Reviewer: Rachel Agyekum
Rachel Agyekum calls it a powerful drama about rebuilding a life after prison and praises Mackie’s commanding energy and her shifts between characters, helped by Peña’s subtle sound design. The script, though, rarely pauses to examine how Baby’s experiences have shaped her, moving quickly from one hardship to the next, and the critic felt a disconnect between those experiences and how engaging the evening is.
“While the topics are powerful, the execution is perhaps less effective.”
Afridiziak
"Baby, impressively portrayed by Pearl Mackie"
Reviewer: Folabomi Amuludun
Folabomi Amuludun admires the caustic wit with which Mackie moves through Bhatti’s lyrical writing, though the performance sometimes turns staccato when she also has to act as her own stagehand. The bigger question is what the play adds to a story often told on screen and stage, and the critic wishes it had spent longer on the less familiar corners of Baby’s life.
“…the play races through her life, offering only brief vignettes of the relationships and traumas that lead to her incarceration.”
Production photographs by Helen Murray.
Also reviewed by: The Stage (Sam Marlowe, three stars, "Authentically raw"), whose review sits behind a registration wall.
Elsewhere this week, the critics have also had their say on Tom at the Farm at the Barbican Theatre and Some Woman at the National Theatre.
Baby runs at Brixton House until Saturday 31 October 2026.
