Again, 3***, London

London.
AGAIN
by Stephanie Jacob

3***

Trafalgar Studio 2, 14 Whitehall, London SW1A 2DY to 11 March 2018.
Tues-Sat 7.30pm. Mat Thu, Sat & Sun 3pm.
Runs 1hr 10 mins No interval.

TICKETS: 020 7836 8463.
www.atgtickets.com
Review: William Russell 9 February.

Again and again and intriguingly again

A fractured family are having a reunion. Father has left them for another woman, but he has come back and the welcome from his wife suddenly deteriorates into a shouting match. Then it starts all over again. Stephanie Jacob’s look at how people remember things differently – for each the past is quite different, the children – stay at home son, daughter about to travel – recall things their parents do not. It is like layers being stripped away and the result is both funny, sad and fascinating. Chris Larkin is very good as the insensitive, puzzled dad who can’t quite understand why he got it wrong, Rosie Day and Charles Reston make his fraught offspring totally credible, and Natasha Little bears up bravely as the cast off wife. If there is a problem it is she is much too young to be the mother of those children. It is a short but intense evening directed with a sure hand by Hannah Price and Jacob’s portrait of the complexities of belong to a family hits home – maybe everyone has not been part of a family that has split up, but all families have tensions, times when the possibly unforgiveable gets said, and false memories about the how and the why.

Tom: Chris Larkin.
Louise: Natasha Little.
Izzy: Rosie Day.
Adam: Charles Reston.

Director: Hanna Price.
Designer: Anthony Lamble.
Lighting Designer: Sally Ferguson.
Sound Designer: Sebastian Frost.
Movement: Gillian Reston.

2018-02-11 14:36:19