James Nesbitt and Clare Burt in This Is My Family at Chichester Festival Theatre. Picture: Johan Persson
This Is My Family continues at the Minerva Theatre at Chichester Festival Theatre until 15 June 2019.
Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩
Tim Firth’s musical was first staged by Daniel Evans at The Crucible, Sheffield in 2013. Evans, now artistic director at Chichester, has revived it for new audiences to enjoy this extremely funny show. It is also a very moving one that has more than a touch of a fairy story about it.
Firth looks at a family’s life as the members face moments of crisis. Mum and Dad, Steve and Yvonne, have reached a point in life where they fail to communicate with other, bicker and shout at their teenage children, Nicky and Matt. Also they have to cope with Steve’s Mum, May, who is suffering from early dementia. Completing the family is Sian, Yvonne’s sex-obsessed sister-in-law.
Thirteen year-old Nicky wins a holiday after entering a writing competition. She writes about her family but depicts them in a far rosier light, not revealing their true fractious behaviour.
Rejecting the lure of the exotic, she opts for taking them on a disastrous camping trip, during a storm, to the site where her teenage parents first declared their love. Her hope being that it will rekindle the spark that has gone out of their lives.
The ensuing farcical mishaps enable the family to understand each other and emerge as a more cohesive unit.
Evans’ direction ensures that the piece moves at a lively pace, except for an occasional longueur or repetitiveness in the writing.
He has chosen wisely for his set designer, Richard Kent, who has devised an enchanting set. Act I is played in front of what appears to be an open fronted doll’s house from which furniture and props are taken. For the second part the set swings round revealing the woodland setting complete with giant fir trees.
Kirsty MacLaren plays Nicky who acts as narrator and leads the action. She gives a very assured performance that reveals a wise and imaginative head on very young shoulders.
Making a welcome return to the stage is James Nesbitt, shedding the heavy, angst-ridden roles that have made him a favourite on television. He has a ball as Steve, a DIY fanatic prone to disaster. It is a highly funny performance and a pleasure seeing Nesbitt being cheerful for a change.
Clare Burt returns to Chichester where she had a personal triumph in Flowers For Mrs Harris last year. As Yvonne, she fully captures the weariness and disappointments of a married life that did not deliver the hopes and dreams that were promised. She has to bear the weight of the family by herself.
That said, she squeezes every ounce of comedy from the part and matches Nesbitt. They play off each other like Wimbledon champions. Jibes and ripostes hurtle backwards and forwards.
Further comedy is provided by Scott Folan as their son Matt. The teenager is first seen dressed as a Goth, mumbling unintelligibly and suffering from first love. His transformation to conformity results from maturity gained from the camping traumas.
Rachel Lumberg, as the outrageous Sian, almost steals every scene she appears in. She is hilarious and no more so than in the song of making love from the first time to the 2,000th time. Along with Burt, she is an original cast member from the Sheffield production.
Countering the comedy is Sheila Hancock’s delightful portrayal of May, bewildered by advancing dementia. She sings about memory loss and provides touching pathos along with a good helping of humour. She gets to deliver a most wicked one-liner.
The piece is more of a play with music rather than a traditional musical. Firth has written the words and music in addition to the text. Many of his songs are the words that the characters cannot speak but feel in their hearts. The music is very pleasant but does not stay long in the memory, apart from the title song which is reprised throughout.
The absence of a list of musical numbers makes identifying individual ones difficult. There are songs about falling in love at 16; an amusing pros and cons duet between wife and husband; memories of a first date; one about things men don’t say; and Sian’s desire for her life to be like the holiday brochure.
One of the funniest is about men who can follow a diagram and those who cannot.
Burt performs a plaintive song about keeping your family as well as one expressing the fears of aging and not wanting to say the same thing twice.
Nesbitt has fun singing interpretations of his son’s grunts and strangled words which is contrasted by a ballad in which he expresses concern about not being the hero he hoped he would be for Yvonne.
The cast and the production received a standing ovation at the finale. A fine start to the 2019 season.
Barrie Jerram
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