Red Bus Londinium Life

The Bush Theatre has another hit on its hands with Not Your Superwoman, now playing to sell-out audiences at its Shepherd’s Bush home. Surely a West End transfer awaits, if the schedules of Bridgerton’s Golda Rosheuvel and Black Panther star Letitia Wright can be aligned.

Writer Emma Dennis-Edwards and director Lynette Linton have crafted a thoughtful family saga that feels both deeply rooted in its specific Guyanese immigrant experience and universal in its exploration of how each generation inherits world views, anxieties, and habits from the one before.

Golda Rosheuvel plays Joyce, mother to Letitia Wright’s Erica. The two actors take turns portraying Joyce’s late mother, Elaine, in a series of flashbacks. This could easily have become confusing, but Linton’s clear direction, supported by Shelley Maxwell (movement) and Hazel Holder (vocal coach), ensures that each woman is distinct, relatable, and utterly believable.

The play opens with near-comedic energy as Rosheuvel bursts onto the stage: bold, brash, stealing drinks, and spinning her version of Erica’s story with verve. Yet as the story turns to Guyana, where mother and daughter have come to lay Elaine to rest, the layers begin to fall away and Grace’s vulnerability comes to the fore. It is a credit to both the writing and Rosheuvel’s nuanced performance that the character remains consistent throughout. Drunk Grace, grieving Grace, mother Grace are all one and the same woman.

Wright’s Erica feels every inch the voice of Gen Z: “I was watching a documentary… it was a TikTok video actually”. She is self-aware, in therapy, reassessing her relationship with alcohol. The lack of respect she receives for these choices reflects not only her family dynamic but also a wider societal tension toward younger perspectives. Her quiet wisdom beats like a pulse throughout the play – not always heard, but always there.

Alex Berry (set), Jai Morjaria (lighting), Gino Ricardo Green (video) and Max Pappenheim (sound) together transform a minimal cubic set into a plane, a bar, a hotel, a shop. Each scene is vividly rooted in place.

This is theatre at its best: using the lens of the specific to deepen our understanding of the universal. The Bush has already sent Shifters and Red Pitch to the West End, and I hope Not Your Superwoman can follow. But how exciting and wonderful it is to have these stories begin on our doorstep in West London. This is a theatre that truly lives up to its slogan:

“The Bush is a place for you.
For our communities to feel seen, valued, and celebrated.
Now and always.”

[Although the play is sold out, there are rush tickets each day on TodayTix]