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Was there last night and couldn’t disagree with your review more, parsley. As ever

I didn’t feel

That any of the characters had any intelligence

The Katherine Parkinson role
Didn’t really behave like someone who had been to university

The manager of the estate agent
Had apparently been to LSE
Yet she was now working in property sales (management)

The roles were not written like real people or adults

Did the play raise some minor themes?

Yes it skirted over gender roles
And marriage in the most generic sense of the meaning

But the plot is so clumsy
And the characters so unconvincing

Although Sian Thomas is an excellent actress
She is lumbered with a massive stereotype
Of a feminist mother
It’s positively cringeworthy

Lightweight plays can be funny and relevant

Look at Nine Night

And looking back into the past

Jumpy was a comedy drama about family
But it was really a good engaging play

This isn’t a disaster by any means

But for me it’s 3 star material

And again if you compare this to a
TV show
Like Big Little Lies
Or even Good Girls

The writing appears anaemic and flimsy

You obviously haven't witnessed how long it takes me to clean my house !

I was there last night too.

I have to say I found the play to be enjoyable, I couldn't second guess how it was going to end up, the premise of the play may of been a bit on the tepid side of a woman leading an alter ego lifestyle, as set down by a manual about how to achieve domestic bliss in the 1950's. However to achieve the said lifestyle brings about debt, where the mortgage cannot be met and that lifestyle demands you remain a housewife.

Katherine Parkinson is worthy of a ticket alone, Sian Thomas is great and does a great impassioned plea of how terrible the 1950's was, for instance a husband had complete subjugation of his wife, that it was lawful for the husband to rape his wife and the wife had no grounds for a divorce. oddly enough I also loved Sara Gregory.

Okay this may not be Posh, which is one of the best play I have seen from this less than prolific playwright, but is still an valiant attempt and makes for a enjoyable evening.

Anyone going to revive Tribes, which I really want to see.

4 Stars.

Curb your enthusiasm

Is witty and incisive

Compared to this play

What interests me is that people on here who have seen it say it was “enjoyable”. They don’t say they love it. I’m guessing that it’s a great production: beautiful set design, great leading actor etc. No one has said that this is a great play.

Saw it tonight, and liked it very much.

The reason I'd guess people don't say they "love" it, I expect (not having read the reviews, bar what's on here) is that the comedy-drama category is never hilarious enough to fulfil the genre needs of comedy fans (of which I am one), nor enough to fulfil the desires of drama fans, who want more of an emotive workout.

Katherine Parkinson is perfect casting for this, as she has always had funny bones, and over the years has really taken huge strides dramatically.

Some spoilers follow. . .

She really gets her character here, someone who fetishes the 50s, and tries to live in the 50s, because her upbringing was so chaotic.

The truth is this is a hugely high concept play, rooted in comparing the now with the then by creating an utterly unbelievable situation. And unlike what you would expect, it's not mugged up for laughs, as although it welcomes laughs when they come, it is a relationship drama at heart.

Parkinson's character is difficult to sympathise with, since she chooses this fifties bed to lie in, but the miracle of Parkinson is that her hangdog persona wins sympathy and laughter despite, rather than because of the set-up. She is an expert at the comedy of slights, awkwardness, suffering bordering on masochism and slowly inflicted humiliations.

Sian Thomas, as Parkinson's mother, has a gift of a role, because her job is to puncture Parkinson's fantasies by injecting heavy doses of reality. And Thomas takes that gift, and doubles it with her eye -rolling expertise.

Make no mistake. None of this is anywhere near as funny as the Dorfman's previous "Nine Night," nor is it as dramatic.

But what this production does do is pierce the lid of fifties mores with a precision that matches it's high concept, revealing plenty about the then and now, as well as functioning as a touching domestic drama about the quirks people develop, and how relationships survive them or not.

Parkinson has a wonderful foyle in Richard Harrington, who plays her understanding but stressed out husband, in that he parries both her comedic as well as her sentimental moments rather effortlessly.

So yes, this isn't electric, but it's rather fulfilling as a touching romantic drama, revealing people's foibles, amusing as a comedy, and utterly on point as a piece of high concept writing.

4 stars.

Fascinating to see the subculture of (literally) living in the past onstage, it’s quite a thing apparently with Goodwood and such. I pretty much echo Steve in his views (I was there yesterday evening, I wish I’d said I was there so that we might have met), it’s an excellent play with great characterful writing for each role. Fittingly Wade gives it a stylistic exaggeration to match the faux period setting and, as one audience member was heard to say on the way out, a lovely play for a summer evening, light yet thoughtful. Katherine Parkinson wonderful, obviously, but they nail the style throughout. I was particularly taken with Kathryn Drysdale as Fran (one of those actors I knew I’d seen before but couldn’t quite place where).

I’m catching up with eight plays over the last week or so and hoping to write something less sketchy, more personal, about them in the next week or so but this is well worth anyone’s time. The relevance of this when (too many) people want to go back in time to an imagined golden age is highly pertinent and, with this and the much angrier Pity, two productions that I saw yesterday show two differing surfaces that hide a highly political message beneath their skin.

Same. She was great as Louise in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps back in the day and more recently as Meghan Markle in The Windsors so I really enjoyed the opportunity to see her on stage.

After the dance-fused scene changes in this and The Country Wife at Southwark Playhouse, I've also decided that it should only be permissible for props to be moved or taken on or off stage when done so in time to music!

What did you think?

Okay....so I have something embarrassing to admit. I didn’t make it to the second act. Instead I found myself wandering along the Thames straight into a local eatery where I stuffed my face for the following hour. I just couldn’t go back. Not even for the adorable Parkinson. I found this a very weak play; the second scene did not pass the Bechdel test and Wade may be using irony in the first act but I checked out. It reminded me a bit of Ira Levin’s Stepford Wives. Now that would be a great novel to adapt for the stage in this #metoo era.