The Lowry, Salford Quays, Manchester – until Saturday April 27th 2019
Reviewed by Julie Noller
4****
Home, I’m Darling written by award winning playwright and screenwriter Laura Wade is a multi dimensional at times slapstick at others sad but always clever and extremely witty backwards and upside view of the lives of two couples. It’s impossible to dissect fully, and you’ll find yourself using the words maybe and perhaps more than once. If you are, or know, an amateur psychologist or even enjoy sitting outside in the sunshine drinking coffee and gazing around as people go about their lives then Home, I’m Darling like me you will absolutely adore.
First premiered on July 3rd 2018 at Theatre Clwyd it’s slowly building a reputation not only for wonderful dialog but the set and costume designs overseen by Tamara Harvey are deliciously kitsch, there’s doors and walls that revolve and disappear, fluffy swishing skirts. Home, I’m Darling shines the spotlight on relationships and at times pops them under a microscope to highlight those cracks that may lie under the surface.
As we took to our seats the music playing is 1950’s Rock and Roll, my teenage daughter actually said she liked it and according to her all music over a year old is outdated. She was worried she wouldn’t understand the humour yet she did telling me of Judy’s many glares that’s the look you give Dad when he’s in a mood – whoops. There are only six characters throught out the play not all interact together but they highlight perfectly how different we all are, how boring life would be if we were mini robots going along each day but that’s an idealised belief and somehow for Judy she becomes fixated in her groundhog day life.
Poor Judy who grew up in a commune with lentil lasagne and women’s rights, where it became the norm to disagree against any sense of rhythm or routine. Where her Mother protected her from her Fathers wondering eye and she idolises him. Judy is played wondrously by Katharine Parkinson who’s head turns and glares are sometimes all it is needed to have the audience in stitches. The one liners throughout the whole play are intelligent quips that bring about a sense of reality.
Judy who found herself redundant from her high flying, high paying career. Sells herself to husband Johnny the downtrodden and dedicated Jo Stone-Fewings, she wants to be a 1950’s housewife. Staying at home mixing cocktails and warming his slippers before serving dinner for when he returns from work. It will be an experiment for three months see how it goes, alas a year later and it’s become an obsession. As Johnny finally breaks and points out when did they start living for the 1950’s and less about themselves as a couple. It’s interesting to note how instead of feeling poor downtrodden Judy the audience is seeing poor downtrodden Johnny; almost controlled by Judy not allowed to even take his wife a cup of tea in bed and he always enjoyed that simple thing. He isn’t a chauvinist and yet he feels exactly that.
Susan Brown is Sylvia, Judy’s freedom loving Mother, wanting her daughter to rise to the top, this experimental rebellious lifestyle isn’t what she fought for. She and Judy are so alike in being fixated, set in their views. Sylvia’s rousing speech towards the end deserved it’s round of applause, she tells Judy how even the 1950’s wasn’t like the movies, how Judy believes in a comic book world, the 1950’s were cold and depressing how girls only helped their Mothers in the kitchen to stand by the oven to get warm. She speaks so many home truths, it’s scary to hear the reality. It is even more scary to watch as Judy fails to respond instead she hasn’t even heard her Mother perhaps years of failing to listen has affected them both.
Then there’s Fran and Marcus (Siubhan Harrison and Hywel Morgan) close friends and fellow 1950’s enthusiasts yet for them everything is more relaxed more of a hobby, money means they enjoy the time more but it’s not a fixation. However things are not always as they seem and we are reminded once again in life that things behind closed doors are not always as they appear or we would like. Finally there’s Alex, the yuppy-esq Sara Gregory who is everything Judy used to be and no wonder Johnny feels himself drawn to her, Judy he says has lost her sharpness. He loved her mind how she used to argue with him and keep him on his toes.
Ultimately I think Home, I’m Darling is too clever for itself, its backwards title hinting at how mixed up life can become. Those little one liners having the different sections of the audience laughing and giggling. At one point the immortal sentence ‘but what do you do all day’ is uttered and you inhale just in case chairs will be ripped up and the collective females will riot. At the end you realise that life is all about give and take and for any of us to succeed at it, we need to live a little embracing change and allowing our love of something or someone to become intertwined with us but not be our essence.