Home I’m Darling at the National Theatre review ***

Home, I’m Darling

National Theatre Dorfman, 29th August 2018

N.B. Home I’m Darling is transferring to the Duke of York’s Theatre from 26th January 2019 for 11 weeks and then toddles off on tour to Theatre Royal Bath, The Lowry and Theatr Clywd.

Now I have to confess to a slight feeling of disappointment with Home, I’m Darling. Don’t get me wrong. It is a very amusing play, with a fine cast led by Katherine Parkinson, and note-perfect set, costume, lighting and sound designs from Anna Fleischle, Lucy Carter and Tom Gibbons, which, cumulatively makes its points. It’s just that it doesn’t really yield too much in the way of surprises once the initial inversion has played out. It feels like writer Laura Wade, whose work to date has been inspired, notably Posh, had a really good idea and a series of fine scenes in her head, but, in translating them on to the page, some of the fizz seemed to evaporate.

Katherine Parkinson plays Judy, a stay at home housewife, married to Johnny (Richard Harrington), an estate agent. It quickly transpires that they, together, have taken their nostalgic obsession with the 1950s to its logical, (or maybe illogical), conclusion. Their friends Fran (Kathryn Drysdale) and Marcus (Barnaby Kay) share their enthusiasm for the clothes, music and style but not the domestic arrangements, right down to Judy decanting the sugar into 1950s containers and milk into glass bottles. Mum Sylvia, (a trenchant Sian Thomas), who brought up Judy in a commune, finds her daughter’s choice hard to comprehend, this “gingham paradise”. The cast is completed by Alex (Sara Gregory), Johnny’s boss, who Johnny is trying to curry favour with to secure promotion. The set up, with the insertion of an Act 2 flashback, allows Laura Wade to explore all angles of the “debate” about gender roles and choices in contemporary society. What value does that society place on “traditional women’s work”? How to balance “choice” with economic necessity? Who can judge on the choice to stay at home or work? What are the risks in fetishising the past? If this sound like its going to be a dour evening never fear. It is all delivered with the lightest of comic touches as you would expect from this writer and from Tamara Harvey who has directed her work before.

The problem is that having conjured up this admittedly intriguing conceit, and established a sit-com mood, the tone never really wavers, and there are maybe a couple too many plot revolutions jemmied in to cover all the bases, for example when Marcus reveals his true misogynist colours. There are occasions when the play steps out of its self imposed comic straightjacket, when Sylvia delivers an impassioned speech about the sacrifices her generation made to promote feminism in the 1970s and just how materially tougher life was for a child in the 1950s, for example. And Katherine Parkinson, with her ability to convey Judy’s brittle interior nature, (she always sounds the weeniest bit p*ssed to me), shows how she crumples under her own self-imposed contradictions. Having teased out a dramatic explanation for Judy’s decision from her own childhood, the plot seems to go into reverse and the ending is something of a damp squib. We all, the SO, BUD and KCK, came out just a little deflated.

I am thinking maybe I am being a little harsh here, and maybe we were asking too much, but that’s where we came out. There are some priceless lines, (Fran’s “the longest recipe I followed this week was Pierce Film Lid”), and the play will definitely make you think. Given that it has sold out at the NT and, prior to that at Theatr Clywd, and has garnered a slew of 4* reviews, I wouldn’t dream of putting you off but there was just something that held us back. And trust me the 4 of us are usually very easily pleased.