Janine Harouni: This Is What You Waited For review – new mum’s return to her own childhood

Soho theatre, London
These deftly sprung riffs on extended family and motherhood gain in power when mayhem offsets the tightly controlled set

The last time I saw Janine Harouni perform she was eight months pregnant and delivering a show about imminent parenthood. It may not surprise you to learn that her first show since is about actual parenthood, of a now 18-month-old boy, with help from her visiting Lebanese- and Irish-American parents. Childrearing may not take a village in This Is What You Waited For, but it takes an extended family – which prompts reflection from our host on how she was mothered, and what kind of mother she can be.

Not for the first time with Harouni, I found the smoothness and control of her hour on that theme almost too neat. A proponent of “gentle parenting”, she practises gentle and measured comedy too. The jokes are very deftly sprung as we’re led through her experience of raising an uncommonly large baby boy, with detours via her relationships with her husband, dad and mom. One fine wisecrack skewers her sports-fan father’s opposition to they/them pronouns. There’s another on how unqualified new mothers are for childcare, and a choice gag about the similarities between the new arrival in her family and a colonialist Brit.

At Soho theatre, London, until 1 November. Then touring