ACCORDING to writer Mike Bartlett, families are awful. That’s why London was invented — so that you can move away from them.

It's a barb, among many in Love, Love, Love, that draws proper guffaws in what could well be a comedy with tragic themes. It might be a tragedy with lots of laughs. It might not matter what it is — premiered a decade ago, it still has bite.
 
In it, Rachael Stirling is flamboyant and caustic as Sandra, drinking her own bodyweight in white wine and veering from 1960s hippy chick to power-dressing career woman in 1990 and finally a Chanel-clad divorcee of 2011.
 
She retains an utter lack of empathy throughout. There’s none for her boyfriend, ditched for a better option, nor for her troubled teenage daughter and bugger-all for her hapless husband.