This new play from Jez Butterworth is an intense look at what being a family really means. This female centred play is full of nostalgia, warmth, depth and ultimately sadness.

As I enter the Harold Pinter Theatre I am taken aback by the set in front of me, a tall stage which has been opened up and had a revolve installed. A labyrinth of staircases weave their way into the rafters of the building, the design from Rob Howell is grand and yet feels cosy all in one. The setting for this piece is a rundown guesthouse on the outskirts of Blackpool in 1976 during a heatwave, where we meet Jill Webb who is awaiting the arrival of her sisters Gloria and Ruby who are returning to the family home as their aging mother is coming to the end of her life in a room upstairs.  They are eagerly awaiting their oldest sister Joan, who is the only one of them to have ever made anything of themselves after she moved to America and became a singer. We are taken on a three act journey moving between 1976 and 1958, as the members of the family deal with their grief and reminisce on their childhoods, we learn of their pushy mother whose only goal was to make her daughters as successful as the Andrews sisters, no matter the cost.