Review: MS. B-HAVED Schools Us on the Life of a Teacher in the 2020s

This one-woman show debuted at the National Arts Festival in 2025

MS. B-HAVED, directed by Natasha Sutherland, tells the story of Sally Burkett, “Ms B”, (played by Sue Diepeveen, who is also the writer of the play), a beloved yet disgraced grade 3 teacher. The one-woman play opens with a bedraggled Sally attempting to ready her home office, having been suspended from the primary school at which she has taught for thirty years, and awaiting the outcome of a disciplinary hearing.

The set is gorgeous – bright, delightfully chaotic and full of colour, very appealing for a little person attending a remedial lesson. Ms B, besides for being a foundation-phase primary school teacher is also a remedial educator and plans to run her practice from home now that she is no longer able to teach at school.

Immediately, an air of mystery surrounds the circumstances of Ms B’s suspension. What did this quirky, athleisure-clad teacher do to deserve such a fate? Slowly, as we get to know Sally, the mystery unravels and we are exposed to the pupils, the politics, the parents, and the policies in the 2020s. It is ultimately the audience who must decide for themselves whether Sally’s ‘crime’ is really a ‘dismissible offence’.

I watched the show with my mom, who, funnily enough, is a remedial therapist herself and who started off as a pre-primary teacher. She was the perfect companion with whom to observe this production, and she related so much to Sally’s experiences, artfully captured and performed by Diepeveen.

The piece is at its best when Diepeveen portrays the interactions between Ms B and her students or between Ms B and the parents (who are far more demanding than any of the learners – this too echoes my own mother’s experience!). My personal favourite vignette are the interactions between Ms B and Mrs Wellman, a (think ‘woo-woo’, ‘namaste’) hippy of a mother and between Ms B and Mrs Labuschagne, a controlling, helicopter parent who becomes Ms B’s nemesis.

I really enjoyed the look into the (frankly terrifying) world of 2020s education – from the hyperbolic idea of drones taking on break-time supervision duty by Mrs Webster (note my emphasis!) to Ms B’s struggling with the Wi-Fi for an online lesson, to observing the carnage of gossiping parents on WhatsApp groups.

Diepeveen displays a good range and the piece moves from laugh-out-loud funny at times, to deeply moving (I might have shed a tear at one stage).

Beyond the laughs (of which there are many) and the mostly light-hearted nature of the piece, it really made me think about the environment in which I was educated (in the early 2000s we played outside and swapped stickers) and the milieu in which my potential, future children would go to school. There is a stark difference. With all society’s notions of progress, technology and advancement, is there not something that we’ve lost? In the blanket outlawing of hugs from teachers, in our detailed list of foodstuffs prohibitions (gluten-free, lactose-free, paleo, vegan etc), in our surveillance-obsessed, instant gratification state, have children lost the ability to be children? And have educators of children been hampered from enlightening, educating and inspiring children and instead forced into the unenviable role of trying to placate, please and pacify parents?

MS. B-HAVED poses all these questions and then some. It certainly made me realise how much my own mother has to put up with in her attempts her educate.

One thing I would have liked is more certainty in respect of the ending – not necessarily to learn the outcome of the disciplinary hearing but to understand Ms B’s own resolution, in spite of it.

MS. B-HAVED reminds us that it is okay to make mistakes and that chasing perfection is a fool’s errand – even when you’ve been educating future generations for thirty years!

I look forward to seeing where this show goes from here – having made its debut at National Arts Festival in 2025, look out for it around Cape Town, where it will be touring in 2026. Keep an eye on @suediepeveen on Instagram for where to catch the show next.