The Memory of Water review – blackly funny look at sisters fighting for a dead mother’s love

Octagon, Bolton Three grownup daughters display childhood neediness in this well-acted production that explores unrequited desires as a mother comes back from the grave The three grownup sisters in Shelagh Stephenson’s Olivier award-winning comedy have one thing in common. Forced together by the death of their mother, they each have a child’s neediness. They are divided, however, over what – or whom – it is they need. What Teresa, the eldest, needs is respect for her devotion, especially as the primary carer in their mother’s final days of dementia. Played by Victoria Brazier, austere and brittle, she is trapped in a narrative of martyrdom, a woman forever convinced she is second-best and overlooked.