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Home life on the circle line
Rachel Lumberg as sister Sian This is my family
Belgrade Theatre
**** ‘The past is another country’ is one
useful quote the programme doesn’t provide to capture the essence of
this show. Tim Firth’s new show (he gave us Calendar Girls)
is told through the eyes and songs of 13-year-old Nicky (Evelyn
Hoskins), fresh faced enthusiastic and wise beyond her years. Her over-stressed mother Yvonne (Clare Burt) and
enthusiastic DIY amateur father Steve (Bill Champion), have spent their
17 years of married bliss recounting the story – mythology – of how and
where they met. When Steve’s mother the hymn-singing May aka Gran
(Marjorie Yates) is at risk of mislaying her marbles, her short-term
'holiday’ with the family looks set to last. ‘The perfect family’ is a short-story competition
that Nicky wins with her honest portrayal of home-life with the Perrys.
The prize is a holiday and Nicky dreams of Patagonia or the Dordogne,
all-loved up sister Sian (Rachel Lumberg) dreams of Zanti, Steve wants
to go to Abu Dhabi– but they can’t go because of Gran moving in, and
then they can’t go because brother ‘Freak’ Matt (Terrence Keeley) has
just married Rachel in a dreamy Druidic wedding in a forest and he just
plain isn’t going.
So where do they go? The past, that’s where.
Black Rock Island is now an adventure park on a Native American theme
and it’s blowing a gale and bucketing down, the bastard orange tent has
no instructions because Steve threw them away, there’s no food, no heat
and Gran’s gone funny - literally. Having just camped in a Cornish
hurricane, this section had me squirming in my seat! I loved the songs, particularly the one Each family member has their own lives and only
interlock at, for example, breakfast. Told through the eyes of a 13 year
old, this family has its shock therapy at Black Rock Island and learns
to look properly at the other people they live with. I loved particularly the incoherent
inarticulateness of Matt learning to voice his thoughts and feelings,
and how in the crisis of the holiday his parents do exactly the same
thing. This is a delight. To 01-10-14 Jane Howard
28-10-14
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