Home, I’m Darling-Theatre Royal, Brighton

Writer: Laura Wade
Director: Tamara Harvey
Co-Director: Hannah Noone

Reviewer: Lela Tredwell

Winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2019, following acclaimed seasons at the National Theatre and in the West End, this new production of Home, I’m Darling comes to the Theatre Royal Brighton on its first extensive national tour. It brings with it an enjoyable aesthetic and an enthusiastic energy drenched in nostalgia. Expect the sounds of scratchy LPs, the swish of skirts with large circumferences, and jiving to a backdrop of pleasing period wallpaper.

It’s the 50s! Or is it? The visually stimulating set seems to suggest so, as do the outfits, and the boppy tunes playing on the record player, but we are in for a surprise. Living within the confines of this vintage home, are Judy (Jessica Ransom) and Johnny (Neil McDermott), a couple obsessed with a bygone era. Their passion for the decade has led them to take extreme measures to live a 1950s lifestyle in 2018.

Judy (Ransom) has left her job in the financial industries to become a homemaker, like the ones she has seen in sexiest old adverts and read about in books with unrealistic expectations. She decants the milk, flour and sugar she buys into more authentic containers. She will only make recipes from the 1950s. And she spends days cleaning behind things. The word ‘housewife’ is something that most of the characters in the play seem embarrassed by and don’t really know what to do with, but Judy is adamant it is hers to own. What does it matter what other people think if she and Johnny are happy?

Are they happy? At the start of the play they claim to be disgracefully so. Of course if this were true, it wouldn’t make good theatre. And this is good theatre. However, the play written by Laura Wade seems to have dated surprisingly quickly for something barely five years old. Its content is arguably best viewed through a Brexit preoccupied lens, but, as Judy (Ransom) herself fears, the world has had to move on. Like her, this play has been left out of the march. Perhaps it is the use of gender politics to explore foreign policy that has it stuck between a rock and a hard place, not quite serving either of its masters to full effect. Much has happened in the last few years and hard hitting dramas that explore the role of women in society far more bravely provoke conversations that make Home, I’m Darling feel rather tame.

Despite having been the winner of the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2019, Home, I’m Darling is unexpectedly lacking when it comes to humour. In this performance, laughter from the audience is sporadic. Much louder, is the gasp at Johnny’s accusation that Judy doesn’t do anything all day. The pressures on women to ‘have it all’ or more aptly ‘do it all’ are consistently present. They offer an explanation of Judy’s desire to remove herself from the impossible system she finds herself in, by ironically diving further into defined gender roles and isolating herself in her home. There she can pretend she has full dominion.

All the women in the play are looking for a solution to the ridiculous expectations put upon them and the behaviours they are expected to endure. In a strong scene, Judy’s mother, Sylvie, played expertly by Diane Keen, delivers a reality check, schooling her daughter on the very real intolerances and hardships of the 1950s. Her line about her own mother being frightened of yoghurt is incredibly affecting. She explains the dangers of nostalgia, and how it was once seen as a sickness.

Bearing witness to Sylvie’s speech is also Judy’s friend Fran (Cassie Bradley), who has been walking on egg shells in Judy’s strict home and is now suffering the consequences of the sexually inappropriate behaviour of her husband Marcus (Matthew Douglas). Cassie Bradley (Fran) gives a compelling performance, alongside Keen and Ransom, which really creates an intriguing connection between the characters. It is these dynamics that we long to see explored further to feel this play has truly found its wings.

With a strong cast and an attractive aesthetic there is a great deal about the production to enjoy. However, the pace of the story is slow and psychological depths are needed to make this performance more satisfying. This would no doubt prove a very interesting group of characters if we were invited to get to know them better. We could do with scraping back all that pretty nostalgic paper and getting a really good look at the cracks in the walls.