Mother’s Ruin is a beautifully distilled cabaret about the joys and chequered, politicised history of gin, explored through story and song.

^{Libby Wood, Jeremy Brennan and Maeve Marsden. Photo by Patrick Boland}

The show was written by Maeve Marsden with Elly Baxter, Libby Wood and Jeremy Brennan, who are the perfect combo for such an enterprise. Baxter, who did the research, is a gin enthusiasm and runs a blog called The Ginstress. Marsden and Wood, who perform, are founding members of feminist comedy/cabaret group Lady Sings It Better, while Brennan is Musical Director. Anthea Williams directs.

Together, they have crafted a 60-minute cabaret show that combines just the right amount of historical information, feminist commentary, comedy and emotion, along with a fabulous musical set list.

After an opening prayer in praise of gin, the show rewinds to London 1929 and the Gin Craze when the desperate were distilling it from turps and woodchips. In 1751, William Hogarth’s prints Gin Lane and Beer Street were released in support of what would become the Gin Act to curb the drinking of the working classes. While Beer Street is a paean to the merits of drinking...