Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig play a mother and daughter through the ages in the bittersweet ‘Backstroke’

Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter for all the latest entertainment news and reviews Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter Sign up to our free IndyArts newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy “Swimming pools do have a Pavlovian effect on people’s bladders,” Celia Imrie chuckles to a not quite six-year-old Tamsin Greig, as the two actors float about an imaginary pool in the intimate space of the Donmar Warehouse. Bo, played by sitcom star Greig, rushes to her mother’s hospital side amid her dementia diagnosis and a series of strokes. For the first 20 minutes of Backstroke, Greig paces about the hospital room where Imrie’s character lies catatonic, nervously clashing with the supporting cast of nurses and doctors – and desperately wanting for a scene partner. Beth’s witty musings – “I think poetry is simply list-making masquerading as art” – are undercut by crude barbs, such as when she compares her daughter’s mouth to a cat’s arse.