Review: Home, I’m Darling is Fascinating, Very So

Lauren Crisp is a book editor, writer and keen follower of arts and culture. She reviews theatre and cultural events in and around the district in her spare time.

You can contact Lauren on laurencrispwriter@gmail.com. 

Judy adores the 1950s. In fact, she’s so taken with the decade that, upon taking voluntary redundancy, she abandons her modern-day existence almost in its entirety and adopts the life of a loving mid-20th century housewife, complete with dancing, dresses and apparent domestic idyll.

Written by British playwright Laura Wade, Home, I’m Darling won the 2019 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. 

Harrogate Dramatic Society’s (HDS) production delivers on the play’s humorous promise; a tight-knit cast conveys a witty, compelling and truly thought-provoking piece.  

In Harrogate Theatre’s intimate studio space, a well-curated retro set, along with vintage costume, invites its audience into the past. Before suggestions of the modern world – smartphones, laptops, talk of new shopping centres – begin to creep in, we are firmly in the 1950s: a 'gingham paradise', as one character quips.

Judy, superbly imagined by HDS’s Susannah Todd, remains at home: she bakes, she cleans and she dotes on her husband, Jonny (Gary Skipper), welcoming him home from work each day with open arms, slippers and a cocktail. 

She rejects modern appliances; she grows vegetables and she plans to rear a chicken that might lay Jonny’s breakfast egg.

Yet, where Judy sees perfection in the decade, one in which, as her disapproving mother (a wonderfully sardonic Janet Wilson) reminds her, she never actually lived, the realities of the twenty-first century soon come home to roost. 

Despite some first-night nerves, the cast is wonderfully engaging. Skilfully paced, outwardly comedic, with uncomfortable undercurrents, the play is captivating.

Here is a shrewd examination of existence: of gender identity, feminism and the imbalance of power. 

A play that reflects on the pull of nostalgia, of a longing for the past at the expense of the here and now, it offers few answers but leaves its audience with many questions. Were the 'good old days' really that good?

Home, I’m Darling is on at Harrogate Theatre until Saturday, June 22.