This is My Family, Southwark Playhouse - London debut of 2013 Sheffield hit is feeling its age

MOR. Twee. Unashamedly crowdpleasing. Are such descriptors indicative of a tedious night in the stalls? For your reviewer, who has become jaded very quickly with a myriad of searing examinations of mental health crises and wake up calls about the forthcoming environmental collapse, I often find comfort in material more suited to the large print section of the library.

We open on a large scale doll’s house, and, to be fair, the allusions to Ibsen, Chekhov, Williams et al don’t ever fade away completely. Across an overstretched 150 minutes run time, I found myself searching for that quote, something about dysfunctional families, tip of my tongue… Google did the job on the bus home. “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” - Tolstoy of course, and very much on point.

Nicky (Nancy Allsop) is our guide through this three generational household that’s unhappy in its own way. We’re fortunate in that, not least because 13 year-old Nicky is much the most level-headed of the menagerie and the elfin Nancy is much the best singer too. She’s our narrator and, though she is listened to least by her family, we’re more than happy to listen to her most. 

While we’re on the musical aspect of the show, I should point out that Tim Firth is credited with “Book and Music”, an unusual listing, prompted by the fact that there are few standalone songs. There’s quite a lot of material that’s close to Sprechgesang, or speech-singing, as the actors half-sing, half-speak conversations to musical accompaniment. Refrains loop forwards and backwards, with pleasant, if not showstopping, melodies beautifully played by Natalie Pound’s seven piece band, dominated by plaintive strings. It’s pretty much sung through, but, unlike Hamilton for example, not via 46 individual songs.

Poor young Nicky has a lot to deal with. Dad, Steve is cycling through the catalogue of mid-life crisis accoutrements as he hits 40 (“only a number”) while his homemaker wife, Yvonne, is bored with the routine of getting the kids off to school, but fearful of the vacuum that looms after they’ve gone. Brother, Matt, has gone into an emoish, “Kevin the Teenager” phase that neither parent is handling well. Meanwhile, Yvonne’s sister, Sian, is hopping from one unsuitable man to the next while doing a psychology degree and Steve’s mother May is forgetting things and too confused to be left alone in her own home.   

If you’re wondering whether such characters are (dread word) relatable or better described by its ugly cousin, stereotyped, so was I and I still am now. What they are, irrefutably, is dated, the play making its debut in London some 12 years after its Sheffield premiere. Throwing a present day reference or two into a revival can derail a scene, but ignoring the impact of the Covid and the malign effect of cost of living crisis in the last five years, leaves us with rather too bland a set of first world problems that seem a bit vanilla even for a family cushioned by middle class comfort. 

Much of the comedy (and there’s a very 8pm Thursday night BBC One sitcom vibe throughout) is provided by Michael Jibson’s hapless Steve, the bodger whose DIY schemes fail and whose embrace of the latest fads (well, the latest in 2013) last about as long as his shelving units. Gemma Whelan brings a patience to Yvonne, long since reconciled to the compromises of sharing a life for 20+ years with 30+ more to come.
She’s less enamoured with sharing some of those years with May, whose dementia is loosening her Christian mores, a sensitive performance from Gay Soper. We see less of Luke Lambert (pictured above) as Gothy Matt and Victoria Elliott as sex-mad Sian but they avoid the trap of caricature, close though they come at times.

Perhaps director, Vicky Featherstone, could speed things up a little, as it takes a long time to go through all the holiday destinations from which Nicky picks a local campsite as competition prize. It takes a while too in the second act to get to the feelgood ending we all know is coming from the first five minutes, possibly from just reading the title on the door.

It’s inoffensive stuff that finds real humour and poignancy in the everyday lives of ordinary people, just about sidestepping the patronising that can slide too easily into stories like this one. The feeling persists though, that a big number or two and a clever updating would benefit a production that coasts when, in 2025, it really could bite.      

• This is My Family at Southwark Playhouse until 12 July
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