Mama Does Derby | Clare Watson & Virginia Gay
Images: Jade Ferguson, Visual Poets Society
Centred on terminally-travelling, inseparable mother-and-daughter duo Maxine and Billie, Mama Does Derby follows the pair as they finally settle down after a life on the move. When cracks begin to show in the relationship, each party tries to identify who they are outside the other for the first time in both of their lives. Mama Does Derby isn’t groundbreaking as a concept, but this is where its strengths lie - it's a familiar conceit, executed effectively and within new framings that add fun nuances to old themes. There’s a joie de vivre that I can’t help but find infectious, despite some structural and thematic shortcomings.
From a performance perspective, Anna Lindner and Elvy-Lee Quici are absolute standouts as Maxine and Billie respectively, bringing a heightened (but believable) mother/daughter dynamic. It’s a very real “cigarette mum and her awkward artsy daughter” relationship, endearing you to both parties immediately and making the ensuing character developments ones you actually care about the outcome of. Lindner’s Maxine is outgoing to a fault, trying on hobbies and personalities like new outfits, and discarding them almost immediately. Billie, on the other hand, is a shy Frida Kahlo superfan, preferring her moody sketches to general social interaction. Maxine’s parentification of her daughter is the central conflict of the show, and their slowly deteriorating dynamic helps this conflict feel as big and important as the world-ending stakes found in other shows. Credit must also be given to performer Benjamin Hancock, who plays Billie’s sleep paralysis demon Nathan - Hancock’s dance and drag background is clear, as the contortionist elements behind their take on a (very Aunty Donna inspired) Shadow Man create a genuinely upsetting and unsettling performance. The horror of Nathan The Demon is undercut soon after they are named, but Hancock’s sheer charisma keeps the recurring character from feeling excessive.
Images: Jade Ferguson, Visual Poets Society
Speaking of excess, I cannot stress enough the degree to which this is a technologically ambitious show - Mama Does Derby takes up its Powerhouse space with the energy of a kid in a candy store, embracing every idea it possibly can (sometimes to a fault). The show features myriad sound and lighting cues, live derby players, a live band, a shadow demon/drag queen, a modular stage on wheels, a bike, a skateboard, and a real hearse - it’s an almost garish degree of “what can we get away with?” that I applaud the audacity of. Unfortunately, I found many of these choices to be distracting more than anything else. The modular stage feels showy rather than functional, and the live band began to grate on me after the fifth iteration of their indie rock Charli XCX cover. It felt a little like the show wanted to distract you from the fact that it was a play rather than a Diablo Cody movie, and my issue with this is that I really liked the play hidden underneath these theatrics.
Co-creators Clare Watson & Virginia Gay’s explorations of trauma, mid-life crises, irony poisoning, and small town social anxiety are a truly unique and effective combination - they’re topics I’ve not seen comprehensively explored in conjunction with one another, and I really enjoyed Mama Does Derby when these aspects were at the forefront. Unfortunately, they were often sidelined for the incorporation of yet another showy moment, sound cue, or comedic sidebar. None of these are issues in and of themselves (the show is, of course, a comedy), but I found myself checking my watch waiting to be back amongst the joys and tensions of Maxine & Billie’s relationship. The filmic nature of the script also affected the execution of certain storylines - with so many locations, dynamics, and setpieces to explore, it often felt that the result was a very spectacular looking montage. Arguments resolving within moments, derby team rebrands happening through unseen conversations, and inconsistent logic around the magic of naming and/or living with your fears all started to build on each other as the show went on, leaving me less taken by the all-singing, all-rollerblading finale than I would have liked to have been. It is, of course, entirely possible that I am simply the wrong audience for Mama Does Derby - going to the roller derby comedy play expecting family drama may have been my own hubris, but the narrative beneath the broad humour is so tantalisingly good that I can’t help but imagine what a slightly less speccy iteration could have been. In saying this, I still teared up at Maxine & Billie’s final reconciliation, so take the above with a grain of salt.
The long and short of it is, I liked Mama Does Derby - it’s a really sweet play, and one that I can imagine being really good fun when a couple pinot’s deep with your mother. I just wish that it spent a little more time exploring the really rich dynamic between its core cast, and a little less time throwing as many exciting ideas as it could to the wall. It's a curio of a show, and one that I suggest you catch if and when you can - how many other chances will you get to see live derby players crash into each other in a mainstage show?
Mama Does Derby plays 3-5 September at the Brisbane Powerhouse as part of the 2026 Brisbane Festival.
Images: Jade Ferguson, Visual Poets Society
