Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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Mother trouble
The relationship between an over-ambitious mother and her damaged daughters makes for a muddled evening of drama, finds MARY CONWAY
MONSTROUS: Laura Donnelly with Nicola Turner, Nancy Allsop, Lara McDonnell, Sophia Ally in The Hills of California
[Mark Douet]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
The Hills of California
Harold Pinter Theatre
DISAPPOINTMENT is sadly the biggest takeaway from Jez Butterworth’s new play at the Harold Pinter Theatre.
Set in Blackpool in 1976 – with flashbacks to the late 1950s – the story is of four sisters congregating at their old family guesthouse to mark the approaching death of their mother Veronica, who grimly suffers in an upstairs bedroom. One sister Jill (Helena Wilson) still lives with her mother; two others Ruby and Gloria (Ophelia Lovibond and Leanne Best) arrive with bitter tales of the effort it’s cost them to get there; and Joan – well – will she bother to come at all? And thereby hangs the tale.
Blackpool is famed for its promise of seaside pleasure for ordinary people. It also represents a kind of tackiness and impoverished aspiration that is represented in the play. The guest house, for instance, is called Seaview. That it has no sea view is indicative of the gap between dreams and reality as witnessed in this place, and by Veronica who, in her younger days, mercilessly drills her teenage daughters to become a song and dance troupe in the vein of the Andrews Sisters.
Similar stories
MARY CONWAY recommends a play that some will find more discursive than eventful but one in which the characters glow
MARY CONWAY recommends a beautifully judged performance that shines a light on the experience of all female war babies and boomers
A nervous year, showing that the theatre, like the world, stands on a precipice and seems uncertain where to jump
MARY CONWAY applauds a worthy revival of the US 1939 classic drama that studies the dehumanising consequences of affluence