REVIEW: My Sunny Boy - Spotlight Theatre

My Sunny Boy

Presented by: Spotlight Theatrical Company

Venue: Spotlight Theatre

Date attended: 30 August 2026

Written by: Amy McDonald

Director: Helen Maden

Stage Manager: Pat Apelt

Set Design: Helen Maden

Props: Dianne Lamb

Costumes: Helen Maden and Amy McDonald

Lighting: Thomas Bell

Sound: Helen Maden and Simon Fox

Photography: Vargo Studios (Clay English)

“Travel safe, take care, f*ck off.”

Audrey Hart is a loving, fiercely protective mother and a woman with plenty to say. Her advice to her son always begins with “my love.” Her patience for her ex-husband is non-existent. And any attempt at emotional restraint around the new wife tends to end somewhere around sarcasm, swearing, or a well-placed insult.

Written by Amy McDonald and presented by Spotlight Theatrical Company, My Sunny Boy is a contemporary Australian comedy about separated families, old resentments, surprise pregnancies, and the horrifying discovery that if you raise an independent son, he may eventually have the audacity to become independent!

Audrey once expected a very different life for herself. She and husband Ted were preparing to welcome their first baby when he revelaed that he was leaving Audrey for his much younger mistress, Vanessa (who was also pregnant!). Great timing, Ted. Years later, Audrey has rebuilt herself in a quirky seaside town, where she raises their son George, teaches belly dancing with free-spirited Bodhi, befriends her eccentric neighbour Leo, and has created a life that is messy, colourful, and entirely her own. George is now seventeen, and Ted offers him the chance to spend a year living with his family abroad. Where George sees travel, education, new experiences, and more time with his dad and half-brothers. Audrey sees a year of being left behind and, worse, being replaced. Naturally, she takes this extremely well... “I hold on tight and let go lightly."

Helen Maden’s set gives us the lowdown on Audrey’s life from the get-go. The split-stage set is packed with plants, photographs, and knick-knacks that make a home feel properly lived in. The porch goes even further, with a surfboard, climbing flowers, roughed-up shoes, and enough coastal decoration to make their lifestyle immediately obvious. Inspired by McDonald’s affection for 1960s domestic décor, Maden creates a colourful home with personality in every corner. Even the front lawn gets involved once Leo arrives with his mower and headphones. He's apparently available at all times to perform garden maintenance, collect neighbourhood gossip, and insert himself into whatever family crisis is currently underway at the Hart household.

The costumes by Helen Maden and Amy McDonald underline the contrast between George’s two families immediately. Audrey’s world is all beachy prints, flowing fabrics, dressing gowns, bare feet, and her pair of enormous green reading glasses, while Bodhi looks as though she may have wandered directly in from a music festival. Ted and Vanessa are much more restrained, with structured suits and considerably less tasselling. It’s essentially a fashion face-off between a beachside belly-dancing studio and a corporate boardroom.

As director, Helen Maden cleverly uses the wider stage to establish separate locations rather than forcing every conversation to occur at Audrey’s kitchen table. She keeps the conversational script moving with natural blocking, interruptions, and constant movement through the spaces. The pacing is well defined, with scenes often ending on a revelation, cliffhanger, or killer line before snapping to blackout. At the performance I attended, those blackouts always earned applause before we were plunged back into the family chaos.

The audience was especially responsive to Audrey, and it’s easy to see why. McDonald’s writing is at its funniest when affection and hostility occupy the same scene. When Vanessa shows discomfort about the past, Audrey simply replies, “That condition is called having a conscience, Vanessa.” Playing her own creation, McDonald sells every contradiction in Audrey. She’s loving, furious, spiteful, and vulnerable, with sarcasm and swearing doing very little to disguise how deeply she feels everything.

Harrison Salter plays George as a genuinely likeable boy rather than a stock bundle of teenage angst. He and McDonald share an easy, affectionate mother-son rapport, full of casual teasing and kitchen-table familiarity. There’s something about him that reminded me of several boys I know who were raised by single mums, with that same emotional openness. Plus, his occasional frustrations come across as understandable rather than bratty. When he argues, “I deserve better stuff too”, it doesn’t come across as a rejection of Audrey. George loves his mum, but he also wants some of the opportunities his half-brothers have had.

Peter Maden’s Ted feels immediately familiar as a daggy dad of three boys with an addiction to pastries. He’s attentive to George, eager to help, and clearly adores his son. Maden gets some great laughs from Ted’s awkwardness and reactions, but Ted can still be a bit of a prick (to both Audrey and Vanessa). The scenes with Audrey are especially entertaining because the two actors play that ex-partner history so naturally. They bicker, goad each other, slip into old habits, and still have a bit of spark underneath all the irritation. Ted has spent years being a good father to George, but the play never asks Audrey (or us) to forget why she’s angry with him.

Josie Sargent plays Vanessa with a composure that avoids turning her into the obvious villain. She keeps trying to remain civil with Audrey, which is both admirable and, from Audrey’s point of view, incredibly irritating. Sargent holds her ground well against McDonald’s verbal attacks, while keeping Vanessa warm enough that she never comes across as smug or icy. Their scenes together are my favourites because every not-so-polite exchange carries years of resentment. Vanessa wants peace. Audrey would rather chew glass. Sargent is also much softer with Salter, and the affection between Vanessa and George comes across as genuine.

Sienna Johnson portrays Bodhi as free-spirited, scattered, sexually confident, and genuinely sweet. Johnson plays her ditziness for plenty of laughs while still letting some vulnerability peek through. Her relationship with George did make me raise an eyebrow (five years feels rather more noticeable at 17 and 22), though the play acknowledges the age gap.

Sienna Johnson and Amy McDonald develop a shift in Bodhi and Audrey’s relationship, as their workplace friendship grows into something more maternal. When Audrey speaks through tears about how she loved George while also resenting him after his birth, McDonald lets the humour fall away and the room becomes noticeably quieter. It’s a beautifully judged piece of acting from McDonald, who drops Audrey’s usual bravado and gives us a much more exposed version of her.

Rob Kenna’s laid-back delivery makes Leo’s constant reappearances reliably funny, whether he’s mowing Audrey’s lawn, gossiping about locals, or grooving to Lady Gaga. There’s much more to him than comic relief, though. Leo is a later-in-life gay man with two sons from different mothers, and he becomes the person several characters confide in. I did wish the script gave Leo a little more room of his own. Much of his personal life is delivered through one-sided phone conversations. Considering how interesting his family history is, I’d happily have spent more time with him. There’s also an interesting thread running through McDonald’s writing about what it means to raise boys into men. George, Ted, and Leo all present very different versions of masculinity, while George is still working out where he fits among family expectations and all the other noise surrounding teenagers.

I’d wholeheartedly recommend My Sunny Boy to audiences who enjoy contemporary Australian family comedy, parent-child stories, unapologetically blunt characters, and dialogue packed with terrific wit.