Latest news with #Backstroke
ABC News
09-06-2025
- Sport
- ABC News
McKeown reveals post-Olympic struggle after winning 50m backstroke at Australian trials
Multiple Olympic gold medallist Kaylee McKeown has survived a disqualification scare to qualify for the Swimming World Championships in Singapore. The backstroker was sensationally disqualified for moving on the blocks in her heat of the women's 50m backstroke on the first day of the Australian Swimming Trials in Adelaide, before lodging a successful protest. After several hours, officials upheld the protest ruling that she was distracted by movement just before the start signal. The final was the race of the night, with McKeown winning in 27.33, just .06 seconds ahead of Mollie O'Callaghan — an Olympic freestyle gold medallist. "It's not the first time I've been DQ'd, not something that you really want to practice," she said. She wouldn't elaborate on what happened apart from confirming she was distracted. "Things happen and it just crumbled that way, I knew as soon as I started what I'd done, but thankfully we have the technology to look back at footage and saw the distraction and yeah, got reinstated," she said. She said she was disappointed with her time, but didn't blame the distraction and subsequent protest. "Tonight just wasn't my night, didn't swim the way that I wanted to," she said. "Racing at 10 o'clock at night for a 50 isn't exactly ideal, but I can keep throwing out all these excuses. At the end of the day, I just haven't done the work I would have usually done with my prep. She said she struggled after her double gold success in the 100m and 200m backstroke events at the Paris Olympics. "I think when you go from such a high straight back to such a low and you're kind of left scrambling for ideas on what you're going to do next, it is hard to find your feet. "I don't think people really know, and Mollie can second this, how much pressure we put on ourselves. "I lost my world record [to American Regan Smith], same as Mollie going into Paris, and you're just so fixated on wanting to swim well for yourself, for your country, and for your team. "And you know you just have all that amount of pressure to just do it under, you know 58 seconds. O'Callaghan said she also felt immense pressure. "We don't really have a life outside of swimming. It's just all swimming," she said. With Ariarne Titmus in commentary for Channel 9 during her year's sabbatical from swimming, Lani Pallister stepped up to win the women's 400m freestyle final in a personal best time of 3:59.72 with Jamie Perkins more than three seconds behind. Both women have qualified for the World Championships. The final took place a day after Canadian Summer McIntosh smashed Titmus's former 400m free world record by more than a second. Pallister said she was excited by McIntosh's world record. "She's incredible. She's so young," she said. "I think it's silly to ever say that you doubt anyone. You know Ariarne dropped the record so many times, so I don't think I thought it was going to stay stagnant for long. "I also think it's really incredible for women's swimming going forward and everything we've done over the past decade." McIntosh was also an inspiration for the winner of the men's 400m freestyle, Sam Short, who blitzed down the pool in of 3:41.03 — his fastest time in two years. "She's incredible, I love watching her swim," he said of McIntosh. "It's contagious, I love watching greatness in any sport." Short finished fourth at the Paris Olympics — a performance he described as "a failure". "Took me a while. I did a lot of work with sport psychology," he said. "In our eyes it's a little bit of a failure, but I've got tonnes of mates back home who would literally chop their legs off just to get the opportunity to come fourth in the Olympics," Short said. The man who claimed the silver medal in the 400m at Paris, Elijah Winnington, was second almost three seconds behind Short, but did enough to qualify for the World Championships. The retirement of Emma McKeon has opened up a spot for a new madam butterfly in the Australian team. Alexandria Perkins is the heir apparent after making the semifinals at the Paris Olympics and now she'll be going to the World Championships after winning the women's 100m butterfly in a personal best time of 56.42. She said it was a relief to make the World Championships team. "Definitely, I think 100 fly is always on day one and this time it was the first event, and we've still got the 50 tomorrow but it's such a relief to get the ticket booked on that flight over to Singapore," she said. She said it was a strange experience racing without the presence of McKeon. "She's been at the forefront of this event for so long and she's just so talented and she was amazing role model to look up to. "It sucks that she's not here to race anymore, but hopefully we can bring 100 fly for Australia at the next big meets."
The Guardian
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The week in theatre: Otherland; Backstroke
That crucial instruction to writers that they should 'show not tell', is even more evidently useful on the stage than on the page. It might be reworded as 'embody not explain'. After all, so much can be seen not only as it is but also in the process of becoming different. This makes Ann Yee's production of Otherland an extraordinary 3D testimony, a valuable gathering of information and a finally unsatisfactory drama. Chris Bush, author of Standing at the Sky's Edge, one of Sheffield Theatres's biggest musical hits, has, without writing an autobiography, drawn on her experiences as a trans woman to produce a twofold story that examines the particular question of what people think it is to be a woman, and considers what is it to become other than your accustomed self. Harry, christened Henry, marries Jo, an adored college girlfriend, before realising that a real life demands becoming a woman, a discovery that leads to the end of the marriage. Living as Harriet, before transitioning, she is greeted with wounding bewilderment from her mother (couldn't the person she thinks of her son stop distracting people's attention?) and with sniggers and insults – 'What is that? – from strangers. Fizz Sinclair's Harry is tender, graceful and touching. Meanwhile her former wife – Jade Anouka at full sizzle – falls for another woman (a beguiling Amanda Wilkin) and agrees, against all her former wishes, to have a baby. In doing so she becomes for a time a stranger to herself and her new wife. There is plenty of insight in Otherland, including the observation that foetuses are routinely given the dimensions of middle-class food: they may be compared to an olive but never to a turkey twizzler. Yet Bush too heavily underlines her significant points. Halfway through, the play's naturalism is briefly abandoned. Fly Davis's design splits open to reveal a murky pool containing an early mermaid version of Harry, caught in the net of men who classify her as a monster. Meanwhile, Jo, entering the world of maternity care, is reimagined as a robotic baby-machine. Throughout, an onstage chorus is put to just the use it shouldn't be, unless describing something undetectable. It tells the audience what to see: 'Harry's shoulders stoop as she turns in on herself.' Fizz Sinclair does not need the commentary – she is particularly powerful when suggesting suppressed pain and quiet withdrawal, which makes her final happiness the more buoyant. Anna Mackmin's new play, Backstroke, starring Tamsin Greig and Celia Imrie – who are two good reasons to see anything – moves through eddies of wordspin and whirlpools of interest. In tracing the coming and going, guttering and flaring relationship between a middle-aged woman and her dying mother, the play, directed by Mackmin herself, comes in myopically close to each scene. The dialogue is sharp but the action gets jammed. Ab Fab long ago dealt the death blow to the idea that daughters of the late 20th century were going to follow tradition and be more rebellious than their staid mothers. This daughter, Bo, played by Tamsin Greig, is not as censorious as earnest Saffy, but she is furrowed. Well, she must have had a hard time at school: Bo is short for Boudicca. Greig, straight-faced but with windmill hands, is made up just right by designer Lez Brotherston in unyielding denims and a bobbly capacious jumper that her mother deems 'lesbian'. She deploys her singular calm as an actor to appear both intent and distracted – pulled between her own troubled adopted daughter and her ailing mother; tugged by exasperation, affection, admiration and desperation. Seen at first inert in a hospital bed, stilled by a stroke, Imrie springs into full embarrassing life as she relives her days with her daughter: dependent, neglectful, occasionally affectionate. With flowing grey hair (shorthand for drifting wits), a fringed shawl and ankle-length dress, she talks about her 'dillypot' in magnificent, mad and maddening detail, informing her shuddering daughter that 'whenever your daddy went down on me' she had a fantasy about a hare. As she prepares for a few days away she dimples while announcing she is packing only one tiny travelling loom. Lucy Briers puts in a neat cameo as a sour-faced ultra-Christian nurse who dispenses aggression as if it were an act of grace, sweet-talking her patient as she feeds her the cherry yoghurt she hates. She is completely credible. As is the flickering emotion between the two stars – their very lack of consistency is authentic. Though it is clear from the beginning how this is going to end, shifts of feeling and slow disclosure of shared secrets make the evening twist unpredictably. The trouble is that when every small thing becomes an event, propulsion is overwhelmed. Backstroke? More like trying to do laps in a Jacuzzi. Star ratings (out of five)Otherland ★★★Backstroke ★★★ Otherland is at the Almeida theatre, London N1, until 15 March Backstroke is at the Donmar Warehouse, London WC2, until 12 April
New European
26-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New European
Review: You wait ages for a great role for a woman.. in Backstroke, two come at once
The play is essentially a two-hander between Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig as a mother and daughter trying to navigate a way through dementia and advanced old age. Mackmin also directs a piece that is a well-constructed, very human, and, at once, funny and tragic account of two women who take turns at being the other's carer. It is the job of theatre to just occasionally put up a mirror to real life and that Anna Mackmin achieves rather wonderfully in Backstroke. Imrie in a role that could hardly be any less glamorous – she is hooked up to a drip in a hospital bed for much of the play – is on staggeringly good form, at once pathetic and terrifying in her last moments. Greig delivers a more nuanced performance – cold and heartless at the start but more understandable towards the end – and the chemistry between the two is a joy to behold. There are precious few great roles available for women on the stage, but these two fine actresses, clearly valuing what they have, make the most of them and they make this an unforgettable night at the theatre. Backstroke plays at the Donmar Theatre in London until April 12.
Telegraph
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Backstroke: It's a tough watch – but Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig are superb
The chance to see Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig on stage together – and up close at the 250-seat Donmar too – has meant that tickets are scarce for Backstroke, despite Anna Mackmin's play being flagged as a tough watch. Although the title's swimming reference is duly honoured and explained, 'stroke' is the operative word; the evening explores the distressing aftermath of one. Set those two names side by side and you'll likely think of comedy in the first instance. Aside from being in the latest Bridget Jones film, and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel hits, Imrie is still cherished as the affected Miss Babs in Victoria Wood's Acorn Antiques skits, while Greig is a darling of British sitcom who became adored as just-coping Jackie in Friday Night Dinner. Despite Imrie playing a critically ill mother called Beth, and Greig her beleaguered daughter Bo, there are aspects of the evening that play to these strengths. Mackmin's script jumps about in time, achieving an Ab Fab dynamic in its evocation of Beth as an outspoken, boho child of the Sixties – whose metier is woven sculptures – and her sensible, self-contained offspring. But there's no sugar-coating it, the core of the piece confronts what many of us will likely go through, and many of us have to witness: a medical crisis that renders a once autonomous adult incapacitated, and approaching the point of no return. A wail of ambulance sirens ushers in the sight of Imrie bed-bound in hospital, staring into space. If you're easily triggered perhaps steer clear, but catharsis may await too. Mackmin valuably catches the agonising shared powerlessness, and nigh impossible decisions on treatment. The obvious topical, and ethical, considerations around end-of-life care are only gently touched on, though, apparent most in Bo's recoiling at the issue of long-term support (this struggling TV writer has a disturbed adopted daughter to contend with). Mackmin's main focus is on huge emotional upset, the way we are borne back into the past during these crunch-moments – revisiting causes of resentment, and happier times too. The dramatic structure neatly mimics synaptic connections as it builds up the backstory, requiring the leads to convey their characters at different ages. But Mackmin, who also directs, errs towards overload. Bursts of flickery video convey a home-movie of the mind, but are distracting too. Stirring? It is, but running at two hours plus an interval, momentum flags. Even so, the production confirms Greig as one of our finest actresses – her deadpan features a surface beneath which churns so much; she can convey incredulity with a raised eyebrow, exhaustion with a sustained blink. A choked-up funeral oration achieves a wrenching sense of belated filial appreciation. And Imrie musters the complexity of this raffish, motley matriarch, who, when active, smokes at breakfast, dishes out tactless insults, divulges her sexual history with disinhibition and becomes ditzily inclined to malapropisms. A show, then, not unlike a domineering but dear relative: there's much to pick away at but much to hold on to and admire too.
The Independent
21-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Celia Imrie and Tamsin Greig play a mother and daughter through the ages in the bittersweet Backstroke
'Swimming pools do have a Pavlovian effect on people's bladders,' Celia Imrie chuckles to a not quite six-year-old Tamsin Greig, as the two actors float about an imaginary pool in the intimate space of the Donmar Warehouse. The Donmar presents the world premiere of Anna Mackmin's semi-autobiographical play about motherhood, circling a contentious and reversed parent-child relationship through the ages. Bo, played by sitcom star Greig, rushes to her mother's hospital side amid her dementia diagnosis and a series of strokes. Doyenne of stage and screen, Imrie plays Beth as a hippie Miss Havisham, with half-grey, half-pink hair and bohemian flares riddled with holes. Through a scattershot mix of pre-taped and performed memories, we learn how this topsy-turvy relationship came to be, with Greig playing Bo in memories that go back as far as when she is six years old. Beth, meanwhile, is fabulously bohemian, with a narcissistic, anxiously attached nature that fosters both a passionate child and a cynical adult in her daughter. Beth's preoccupation with her own liberation leaves Bo without the time or space to be a child. For the first 20 minutes of Backstroke, Greig paces about the hospital room where Imrie's character lies catatonic, nervously clashing with the supporting cast of nurses and doctors – and desperately wanting for a scene partner. To everyone's delight, finally Imrie springs to life, leaping from her vegetative state to their recreated kitchen table, cigarette in hand, feet up, suddenly regaling her daughter with stories of her sexual escapades in blush-worthy detail. The stage, cluttered with hospital paraphernalia and kitchen parts, acts as a nifty portal for characters to jump through their memories. Designed by Lez Brotherston right down to the cigarette-stained Seventies linoleum flooring, the set evokes claustrophobia – forcing the actors into tight proxemics to squeeze the vulnerability and tension from them, all the while making audiences feel the familiar strain of staying one too many days back home during Christmas break. Imrie delivers her colourful dialogue with devilish delight, even if at times she does seem to be grasping for lines. Her airy, elongated register contrasts Greig's punchy groundedness wonderfully. Beth's witty musings – 'I think poetry is simply list-making masquerading as art' – are undercut by crude barbs, such as when she compares her daughter's mouth to a cat's arse. Mackmin's script feels real. The characters are lived-in, no doubt lifted from the writer's own memory bank. The writer and director of the play grew up in a Norfolk hippie commune with her poet father and bohemian mother, who died following an Alzheimer's diagnosis. Memories intrude in tough times, and the play attempts to reflect this with videos projected onto the Donmar's back wall. As a concept, it is appealing, but in practice the heavily filtered visuals and edited audio verge on melodramatic, pulling audiences out of the story. Greig's performance in the second act anchors Backstroke. In between the duo's crackling chemistry, it's the moments of stillness on her face that capture the universal pain of missing someone before they're gone. Her ability to shift from sassy rebuttals to her mother's critiques of her weight, age and fertility, to tenderly wiping her mother's mouth as she lays dormant is gut-wrenching. Towards the end, throats thicken, and breaths begin to shake in the audience – before a scene change and well-timed gag bring on sensible British coughs and sniffs of emotional sobering up. For those familiar with dementia's toll, this play will ruin you. Others may find it lacks a certain, well, certainty. Is it about the innate knottiness of mother-daughter relationships? The value of memory? The pain of loss? It never quite seems to know.
