Review: Freya Mallard: The Bounce Back

As I look back through my notes, what’s striking is the number of original ideas Freya Mallard has. A clear focus here, for a woman who gave birth (at the time of writing) 87 days ago, is motherhood. But she’s way beyond that. From boyfriends getting on the phone to dissuade potential attackers, to a genuinely insightful solution to the crisis in carer numbers, and a porn script without the sex, this a brimming hour.

Via the birth of her child Mallard opens up an expansive take on care, women’s relationships, with a few cracking observations thrown in for good measure (you will want to research Charles Darwin’s personal approach to genetic diversity after this). The problem is, it doesn’t feel like this in the moment, as some real creativity is let down by inconsistent writing and, consistently, poor performance. There’s about an hour and a half’s worth of material in The Bounce Back – a minor miracle in itself given Mallard had to plan this show before actually having a child and, as she puts it, “it’s very easy to identify what kind of person you are going to be before the thing has happened”. But the result is there’s barely a moment for any beats to be considered, weighed up, and delivered.

There’s embryos of great jokes written back to front, a lovely scripted section that just stops with no exit plan, a genuine reveal that has to be slid in as an aside. We long for just a second pause between set-up and punchline. The overall result is that Mallard’s high stakes persona lacks the poise required to keep us hanging on each word. There’s more than enough in this to develop as the month goes on.