Performance artist Bryony Kimmings loves to make work about her own life. After award winning work on men and mental health (Fake It Til You Make It), sexually transmitted diseases (Sex Idiot), and her recent show on the breakup of her relationship and accompanying nervous breakdown (I’m a Phoenix, Bitch), she now turns her unflinching and hilarious gaze onto single motherhood. In collaboration with documentary filmmaker Daisy Asquith, she brings together a group of single mums and takes inspiration from their emotional and hilarious stories to create an opera.

A tour of English National Opera’s backstage workings gives Kimmings a crash course in all things operatic, and confirms it is the perfect medium to represent the drama and high octane intensity of single motherhood. Stevie, mum of two from East Sussex is in her own words, “unrelentingly positive”, but remembering telling her kids that she and their dad were separating still makes her very emotional. Grace got married young and suffered postnatal depression after her daughter was born. Kerry has five kids, four with her husband and one with a more recent partner. The first sign her husband was leaving her was a suitcase in the hallway. Emily has a teenage daughter who has a habit of running away. The fifth and final single mum Leigh is also an opera singer, bridging the gap between art and life in the programme. 

Working with composer Vahan Salorian (Boys of Paradise), Kimmings writes the words; Salorian the music; and five young opera singers are hired to play the mums. Just three days of rehearsal make this twelve-minute opera an extraordinary labour of love, and it is performed on the fourth day at the gorgeous old music hall venue Hoxton Hall in Shoreditch.

The crew on this programme merit a mention, as it was overwhelmingly made by women. One female director, choreographer, two executive producers, one producer, a production manager, a director of photography, camera operator, two camera assistants and an editor, many of them single mums themselves. The programme was finished in the early weeks of lockdown ,with Director Daisy Asquith working remotely and Bryony recording the voice over in her bedroom.

Jonty Claypole, director of BBC Arts said of the film: “I think it is a really significant piece of documentary-making, as well as a brilliant performance.”

For BBC4

60 mins

2020