Richard Harrington as Johnny and Katherine Parkinson as Judy in Home I'm Darling. Photo by Manuel HarlanDeciding to give up her highly paid job running a team of staff in a modern office to become a housewife was her choice not his, but Judy hasn’t only decided to stay at home but transform it, herself and her husband into a living, breathing, vintage museum. This domestic goddess doesn’t judge anyone by her own standards, having chosen this lifestyle for herself – not had it forced upon her by her husband. But are they happy?
Laura Wade writes bathos like a master craftsman with director Tamara Harvey conducting effortlessly. Listening to the wonderful rhythm of her language we know that at any moment we can expect the perfect drop and Katherine Parkinson’s impeccable delivery plays every comic phrase to perfection.
In an interview, Parkinson suggested that her character, Judy, is “propelled by a deep fear and disenchantment with the modern world”. She’s not alone and the resonance in Wades script was palpable in the Dorfman. Perhaps Judy has created this artificially ‘perfect’ world as a rejection of her feminist mother’s liberal upbringing in a lefty commune, or perhaps as tribute to her beloved dad. “You’ve mixed him up with James Stewart and Gregory Peck”, protests her hippy mother, Sylvia, sympathetically played by a brilliant Sian Thomas.
Johnny may not be perfect, but in a nicely nuanced performance by Richard Harrington, seems to be as close to the idealised hero Judy always hoped he’d be. Fellow Jivestock Festival going friends, Fran and Marcus (respectively Kathryn Drysdale and Barnaby Kay cutting an impressive rug in the scene changes), like the vintage clothes cars and dancing but haven’t gone for complete immersion in the fantasy that Judy has made, and give an entertaining modern contrast with their behaviour, Fran even doing a swear.
Anna Fleischle has designed a home and wardrobe that Doris Day would have been proud of in shades of Launderette Yellow, Powder Blue and Puffball Pink, with panels that swivel to show us the transformation over time in a cunning flashback to Judy’s redundancy three years earlier, a nifty bit of structuring by Wade. Judy and Fran’s frocks are to die for and I’m hopeful that the soundtrack put together by Tom Gibbons is available soon on Spotify (seriously). Cheery touches such as Judy decanting her milk from a plastic carton into a glass bottle remind us that this is fake and we’re really in present day, albeit Judy being ‘pinny fresh as he walks in the door’. We’re nostalgic for the good old days, but it’s clearly a front. “I like being frugal, it’s a project” she claims but we know it’s hiding deeper financial worries.
With act one opening with Johnny and Judy claiming to be ‘appallingly happy’, I feared this harmonious gingham clad façade would crumble and send me home sad. Cleverly, Laura Wade twists the plot away from what might have been an easy opportunity to poke at 50’s men and instead lifts us up with a home run for the good guys.
Home, I’m Darling is running in the Dorfman Theatre until September 5th but I urge you to get online to grab the remaining few Friday Rush tickets as this is a wonderful, uplifting piece of work crafted by three gifted women at the top of their game.
Self proclaimed ‘professional idiots’ The Lampoons revive their re-imagining of William Castle’s 1959 American Film Horror “The House On Haunted Hill” – a film starring Vincent Price who offers a $10,000 prize to five strangers if they are able to survive one night at his haunted house. The Lampoons are off to Edinburgh, and I highly encourage you add them to your list.