Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
A production that misses the mark on many levels
Political tirades, prophetic end-of-world visions, broad, sit-com style humour and trite caricatures do not blend, writes SIMON PARSONS
SPECTACULAR STORM: Owen McDonnell (Pete) in Manor [Manuel Harlan]

Manor
Lyttelton Theatre

MIX together an insolvent, forthright lady of the manor, a drugged-up former pop star, a blind anti-feminist revisionist historian, a supposedly charismatic far-right leader, a hypochondriac slob, a radical black working-class student and her would-be detective, medically trained mother and throw in a dash of aged vicar in underpants and pink fluffy jumper and you might expect a revival of the Carry On tradition.

Put all these ingredients in a physically skewed Restoration manor house on the point of being washed away in a storm of biblical proportions and throw in a dead body and a pinch of ghostly sound effects for seasoning and expectations might slide towards gothic horror or political allegory.

Moira Buffini’s play is none of these.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
IMPASSIONED: Phoebe Thomas and Matt Whitchurch / Pic: Ellie Kurttz
Theatre review / 25 May 2025
25 May 2025

SIMON PARSONS is taken by a thought provoking and intelligent play performed with great sensitivity

Terrors
Theatre review / 16 May 2025
16 May 2025

SIMON PARSONS is gripped by a psychological thriller that questions the the power of the state over vulnerable individuals

CLASS AND SEXUALITY: Sesley Hope and Synnove Karlsen in Laura Lomas’s The House Party / Pic: Ikin Yum
Theatre Review / 24 April 2025
24 April 2025

SIMON PARSONS applauds an imaginative and absorbing updating of Strindberg’s classic

Lizzie Watts and Andre Squire in Jane Upton’s (the) Woman
Theatre review / 19 February 2025
19 February 2025
SIMON PARSONS is discomfited by an unflichingly negative portrait of motherhood and its trials
Similar stories
Ilias Alexeas and Elena Hadjiafxendi as Andy and Theophana 
Theatre review / 2 April 2025
2 April 2025
ANGELA COBBINAH applauds the success of a tribute in drama by a daughter to her immigrant mother
AWKWARD HOMOGENISING OF RCIAL GROUPS: Gershwyn Eustache Jnr
Theatre Review / 3 March 2025
3 March 2025
MAYER WAKEFIELD wonders why this 1978 drama merits a revival despite demonstrating that the underlying theme of racism in the UK remains relevant
Ross Tomlinson as Smash and Waj Ali  as Valdez in The Unseen
Theatre review / 22 November 2024
22 November 2024
SIMON PARSONS applauds the psychological study of prisoners dealing with a frighteningly oppressive world endured by far too many
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING: The cast of The Grapes of Wrath
Theatre review / 1 August 2024
1 August 2024
PAUL DONOVAN admires a brave attempt to stage John Steinbeck’s epic tale of poverty-stricken 1930s America