Owners by Caryl Churchill. Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1 to 11th November 2023.

4****: William Russell.

Owners was Caryl Churchill’s first play staged fifty years ago at the Royal Court. It was not a great success but it launched one of the most influential writing careers in British theatre and its subject – the exploitation of people living in rented property – is, if anything, even more relevant today than it was then given the state of the housing market and homelessness. It is a very black comedy – Ortonesque in many ways and the late Joe would not have been ashamed of it – for which director Stella Powell-Jones has assembled an impressive cast. It does, however, not quite suit today’s woke attitudes which is interesting to discover – there is domestic abuse, exploitation of the vulnerable for sex and the character who has a death wish is mentally disturbed and today mental illness is no laughing matter. But set that aside and it certainly holds the attention and makes its points about the problems of being able to afford and find places to live which overcomes any qualms one might have. It is of its time not our time but that time has not ended as far as homes to live in are concerned.

Family butcher Clegg (Mark Hackett and bluster and self conceit) is winding up his business which has fallen victim to the arrival of a supermarket, dreaming of murdering his wife Marion (Laura Doddington doing hard faced career woman to perfection), who has taken up acquiring rental properties and making a success of it, while being serially unfaithful. He confides this to his friend Worsley (Tom Morley) - and her employee – a lanky well dressed nerd of the first degree who has dreams of killing himself – he even sought help from the Samaritans only to find they offered help not to kill oneself. Meanwhile Lisa (Boadicea Ricketts) is ready to do anything to keep or get a home lives with her Irish husband Alec (Ryan Donaldson) and their children with a baby on the way in an apartment in a house Marion wants to buy. Alec was also one of Marions lovers but is now disinterested. Lisa in due course has the baby which Clegg covets as he would like a son and heir. Stir all that, add Alec’s aged mother (Pearl Marsland doddering superbly), and you have a splendid stew which eventually comes spectacularly to the boil. There is a clever set by Cat Fuller consisting of a series of London front doors , some of which open, and spaces in between through which pieces of furniture appear as the settings for the action shift from house to house. Add some tunes of the period and you have an evening to make one remember the height of Thatcherism, laugh, be taken aback by one which still hits home after half a century – London, after all, is full of empty houses belonging to people who bought them as an investment not to live in and the rental market is terrifying. As a rediscovery - or resurrection perhaps - of a more or less forgotten play this is a triumphal evening.

Cast

Laura Doddington – Marion.

Ryan Donaldson – Alec.

Mark Huckett – Clegg.

Pearl Marsland – Alec’s mother.

Tom Morley – Worsley.

Boadicea Rocketts – Lisa.

Laura Woodhouse – Mrs Arlington.

Creatives

Director – Stella Powell-Jones.

Designer – Cat Fuller.

Lighting Designer – Chuma Emembbolu.

Sasga Howe – Sound Co-Designer,

Max Pappenheim – Sound-Co- Designer.

Agata Odolczyk – Costume Supervisor.