Beth Steel’s new play Till The Stars Come Down is the latest transfer from the National Theatre into the West End.
After receiving much acclaim, and being recorded for NT Live/At Home, this family snapshot set in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, in 2023 settles on Haymarket.
A family is gathering for the wedding of Sylvia (Sinead Matthews) and Marek (Julian Kostov).
She comes from a close-knit working class family of three sisters (Hazel (Lucy Black), who is married to John (Adrian Bower) and has two young daughters; Maggie (Aisling Loftus), who is unsettled after four divorces and no children).
Her dad, Tony (Alan Williams), was a miner, and her mum has passed away at some indeterminate date in the past.
Marek is a hard-working, ambitious Pole, who has a sentimental side.
The longer first act focuses on the morning of the wedding as the female members of the family sort out hair, make-up, and clothes.
Aunty Carol (Dorothy Atkinson) arrives in a blur of faux efficiency and blunt comments. The girls, teen Leanne (Ruby Thompson) and younger Sarah, are excited for their first big event, although Sarah is a bit of a brat about it.
Slowly, as the wedding concludes and moves to the reception, it becomes clear that in this family there are lines that have been crossed, betrayals, and confidences kept.
Tony and his brother Pete (Philip Whitchurch, married to Carol) haven’t spoken in decades. Hazel and John are unhappy in their marriage.
Even Marek, new to the family, is affected by the latest racism of a town low on employment.
Maggie, having left a well-paying job at the club to move away from Mansfield, is an enigma from the start.
She’s well-dressed, if a little showy, while Hazel has settled into the trappings and habits of middle age. Shelley is somewhere in between, a daddy’s girl with her own mind.
This is a very funny play, especially if you recognise the type of people and lean into their turn of phrase. I’ve definitely met folk just like this.
But a turn into the more serious aspects of the story don’t quite catch with the same effectiveness, especially around a plotline in act two that causes a fracture through the family that won’t heal.
Having some of the audience seated on the stage as observers/guests is interesting, although other than the close proximity to the action, I wasn’t sure why director Bijan Sheibani made this artistic choice.
A sudden burst of rain comes from a moment of stillness not referred to again, when I expected this to become a major focus of magic realism.
The performances are all very good, and this really does feel like a family, with the snideness, bickering, memories, tender moments (the fixing of a tie), and the fighting.
This was a mining town, and the men who worked in it still carry the scars of an industry which collapsed around them before they really realised it had gone.
As in most working-class towns, the women carry the narrative and lead the family. It took a while for me to figure out who was who and how they were related!
Steel ensures that we are immersed in the kindness and closeness of the family before dropping a sliver of acid that led to audible gasps around the auditorium.
There’s a lot going on, and a lot to think about. At times, I felt Steel was a little too mocking of the circumstances of this family, who shop at Peacock and TK Maxx, wear knock-off make-up products, and seem to have never seen risotto.
More successful were the barbs about immigrants and catty comments about friends behind their backs. Best line of all was Maggie’s about one of her husbands, “He looked a me like I was a potato … in a famine.”
Samel Blak’s set and costumes, with a revolve on the stage, a disco ball, and a sparse set of recognisable props, captured the day right down to Aunty Carol’s horrendous hat and the suits awkwardly worn by the men.
The sisters’ dead mother is present due to an averted catastophe, and fights are choreographed to be as unsettling as possible.
Till The Stars Come Down is a new and potent tenant in the West End, and it offers a great evening’s entertainment.
I’m rating it 3.5 stars. A solid show of heart, soul, and disappointment.
Till The Stars Come Down is at the Theatre Royal Haymarket until 27 Sep – details here.
Image credit: Manuel Harlan