Seven Ages of Mam: Hilarious show about life as a woman, daughter and a mother

A LAUGH-out-loud funny yet poignant one woman show starring Pauline O’Driscoll (‘Smalltown,’ ‘The Young Offenders,’ ‘The Tourist’) in which Mam hilariously reminisces about her life as a woman, a daughter and a mother.

A contemporary reimagining of Shakespeare’s most famous soliloquy – but from a Mam’s point of view! Mam’s hilarious take on motherhood, sexuality, grief, infidelity, ageing, love, lust and loneliness.

Finally coming to Tallaght after garnering rave reviews and being nominated best new play at the Brighton Fringe Festival in 2019 and touring all over the country in 2021/2022 and 2024.

This week, we sat down with Pauline to discuss the play, which performs from February 17 – 19 in the Civic; don’t miss it!

What inspired you to take on this role?

Well, I co-wrote the play ‘Seven Ages of MAM’ with Mark Evans, so I was always planning to play the role of Mam myself.

As to how we came to write the play in the first place: Having performed an incredible solo play written by Mark Evans called “You Have It All Backwards” in 2016 (No Borders Theatre) to raise awareness and ultimately in excess of €5,747 in humanitarian aid for refugees fleeing war-torn Syria, I knew I wanted to work with Mark again.

In You Have It All Backwards I portrayed a Syrian mother.

Mark and I decided to collaborate on another piece that would explore the universality of motherhood.

Mark had always wanted to write a contemporary piece using Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man/All the World’s a Stage” speech from “As You Like It” as a jumping-off point.

So that’s where we started from. Benedict Cumberbatch does a fab version of that Shakespeare Seven Ages of Man speech.

Speaking from a personal point of view, the biggest inspiration for me, not just for this play but as a woman and mother myself, has to be the mammies in my life.

I have been enormously influenced by the powerful women, and to quote a line from the play “the long line of mammies” I come from.

A lot of our history tends to be passed down along the paternal line, so a big part of what I wanted to explore in the writing of Seven Ages of MAM was the maternal line… it got me thinking…. My mother, my grandmothers and my great-grandmothers are and were extraordinary women of strength, courage, wisdom and vision.

Each was ahead of her time in the way they thought and fought for the rights of women.

How long has this production been in the works?

We began in 2017, and through a wonderfully collaborative process of workshopping and co writing, we ended up with a finished play that we premiered at Brighton Fringe Festival in 2019, where it was very well received by both audiences and critics alike.

It was nominated as best new play by New Writing South and Brighton Fringe and it got a MUST SEE SHOW review from FringeReview.

Two years later, in 2021, in between Covid lockdowns, we finally made our Irish premiere at The Whale in Greystones and went on to tour nationwide throughout 2021/22.

The reaction to it has been fantastic.

Audiences really seem to identify with Mam and all the ups and downs of motherhood.

It is very special as a performer to feel the audience come on that journey with you, laughing and crying along the way.

I wasn’t planning to tour Seven Ages of MAM in 2024, but I kept getting requests for the show, so off I went.

Despite playing all over the country, the show has never been performed anywhere in Dublin, so I am thrilled beyond measure to be bringing it to Tallaght and to see what Tallaght audiences think of it. Fingers crossed.

Have there been any highlights or challenges of working on it so far?

LOL, one of the biggest challenges was getting my set on a Ryan Air flight as luggage!

The set for Seven Ages of MAM is deliberately very simple and basically consists of my grandmother’s small kitchen table and one chair.

The legs of the table were already detachable, so I got Bandon company Donpack to make me two custom boxes, one for the dismantled table and one for the chair into which I also packed all my clothes and booked two “suitcases” with my flight.

I had to check the boxes in on Ryanair’s special odd shape/outsize luggage belt, but the dimensions were within the Ryanair restrictions for “luggage”, so it worked a treat. Happy days.

What would you consider to be your favourite project you have ever worked on, and why?

In the last couple of years I’ve written another new solo show.

It’s all about hormones, everything from menstruation to menopause, and is an absolute riot of a show.

It’s called JUMP!? – a raunchy, hor-mental comedy.

I premiered it at Cork Arts Theatre in Oct 2023, and then it was brought back again by popular demand in Feb 2024.

Writing, performing and producing – that has to be one of my proudest career moments to date.

My first big theatre break was understudying Gretta Scacchi in Easy Virtue at Chichester Festival Theatre way back in 1997.

My big TV break was opposite Pat Shortt and Charlie Kelly in the IFTA-nominated TV drama series Smalltown.

The most fun was had filming the TV series SisterS and the short film Mustard, both of which are still available to watch on RTE Player.

I really did have great fun creating those two characters.

The most viral clip is the one from the Young Offenders Christmas special when Mairead is in hospital and I play the doctor trying to explain to Conor and Jock that she is not doing “phenomenal” but has “pneumonia”

How was your 2024?

It was a difficult year personally in that my dad, Edward O’Driscoll, died in July.

On the plus side, he’d had an amazingly full life, as he used to say (he’d have been 97 in September), and we as a family had managed to care for him at home since he’d become immobile in 2022.

I’m very glad I was able to spend so much time with him in his last years.

I think it made it a little easier for me to come to terms with his death.

I’d had all the chats with him, told him all my stories, heard all his stories and sung all our favourite songs together.

It was his time to go. May he rest in peace.

Conversely, career-wise, it was a good year.

In addition to the success of my new play JUMP!?, I also played Terry in Aine Ryan’s new play The Hills of Love; took Seven Ages of MAM back on the road to the Shoreline Arts Festival, Bandon Banshee/Shamhain Festival and Galway Fit Up Festival; filmed roles for TV shows The Tourist, The Dry and Borderline; filmed two short films, Mary’s Treasure and Poison; did a TV commercial for Red Click Insurance and renewed my long-running Bord Bia White Fish advert.

What are your career plans for the rest of 2025?

I’m filming a small role in a Hallmark feature film next week; JUMP!? has been selected for the Galway Theatre Festival in May, which is very exciting.

I’m hoping to take it to other festivals and tour it nationwide thereafter, so there’s loads of work to be done on putting all that together, and I’m also researching and draughting another new play (I’m not revealing the working title for that yet).

Meanwhile, I’ll just keep auditioning and self-taping and hoping to get cast in some nice juicy roles.

Who would you like to thank for help on ‘Seven Ages of MAM’?

The creative team of my co-writer Mark Evans, my long-time friend, acting coach and director Tom Kibbe (Website HERE), lighting designer Jamie Feehily and photographer Marcin Lewandowski (Website HERE) for workshopping, rehearsal and performance space.