Dog Mom at Southwark Playhouse (Borough) Review
Ever wanted to know what your dog is thinking? Thought so. This is one of the richest aspects of Dog Mom, a magical realism comedy by Tate Elizabeth Hanyok, where not one but two dogs, played by human actors, speak plain English and philosophise about their people. The dogs are a joy. The humans they belong to are far less fully realised.
We meet Sarita (Vinita Belani) on the first day of her divorced life, as she relocates from suburbia to a New York tenement. Downsized and downtrodden, she stumbles upon a stray dog intent on befriending her. Sarita insists she is not a dog person, but she is a nice person, so she reluctantly agrees to foster the nameless mutt. Temporarily, she stresses. The golden hound (a sensational Patty Gallagher) has other ideas: Sarita smells of home. It’s love. Plans for a solitary new start are further derailed by Nell (Joey Holden), a spunky neighbour, and her four-legged companion Ruben (a brilliant Tom Barnes).
Under Ajay Chowdhury’s pacey direction, the story unfolds chronologically through vignettes any dog owner will recognise: park shenanigans, squirrel patrol, turf wars with ‘the buggy brigade’.
Jarreau Antoine punctuates the scenes with cameos, human and feline, played with sharp comic timing. The Big Apple emerges as an ebullient yet sectarian place, where everyone is jostling for a role and anxious about the pecking order. Dog people have to stick together, like a howling wolf pack. But is Sarita one of them?
The answer comes when the moment arrives to surrender her nameless visitor. Instead, Sarita claims the dog as her own, finally giving her a name – Foster – and becomes a Dog Mom. It is not the motherhood she had longed for, but it is an outlet for her nurture, and a safer one at that. “You can’t get it wrong. You just love them,” offers Nell.
That is one of the play’s strongest points. Dog Mom captures the simplicity, purity and power of canine love, and both dog actors layer animal mannerisms with a distinct personality. Gallagher is all instinct and loyalty as she heels, sits and guards Sarita with looks of pure devotion. Barnes is serving big dog energy, and his Ruben is a bundle of goofiness – the emotional support his owner needs.
Both walk the fine line between magical realism and cliché and mostly stay on the right side of it, although towards the end the dog antics begin to outstay their welcome. There is also a welcome validation of all forms of mothering, as Sarita and Nell dote on their pets, and a pointed reflection on how dog parents can be made to feel like second-class citizens.
The biggest problem is the humans. Sarita and Nell come with rich backstories – divorce, estrangement, infertility – but none of it is fully … unleashed. The challenges of midlife get a nod rather than an exploration, and neither the script nor the direction goes where the material invites.
The two women’s unlikely friendship needs more push and pull, more ups and downs, to supply the drama and the counterpoint to the ‘sniff the roses here and now’ dog nature.
The production doesn’t always help. Sean Cavanagh’s set, made up almost entirely of screen projections of New York residences, jars with the suspension of disbelief the dog actors work so hard to command: it is hard to believe in a talking golden hound when the world around her is a slideshow. Naveen Bhatia’s music choices can feel quite literal, bar a wonderful moment when Foster is – cue Celine Dion – all by herself for a mere hour and descends into gloriously OTT pathos. The chronological story also follows a very predictable arc.
Dog Mom has bags of heart, but it could dig deeper. Still, it is a touching reminder of how much there is to love about our furry friend
Dog Mom is at Southwark Playhouse (Borough) until Saturday 7th November 2026.
★★★
Written by Chiara for Theatre and Tonic, October 2026.