Ellie Nunn (Minnie Gascoyne) and Matthew Biddulph (Joe Gascoyne) in The Daughter-in-Law at the Arcola Theatre. Photography Idil Sukan.This immaculate little revival helps explain why. These snapshots of working class life in rural Derbyshire at the turn of the last century are as satisfying as any TV soap with their sweeping domestic melodrama as family members confront their neighbours and each other with the ferocity of EastEnders. I must say they all merge into one for me with their mining disasters and martyred wives and mothers but they’re always enjoyable.
This one climaxes in a kitchen table debate between an older woman and her daughter-in-law as to whether supportive mothering ruins men for marriage. Better to marry a wimp than a man who’d been brutalised in childhood, I’d have thought, but the case against cosseting mothers is made so passionately that you get swept up in it most engagingly.
The elder of the two Gascoyne sons, Luther is manoeuvred into marrying long term lady friend, Minnie. She’s moved away to work as a nanny and returns to married life in the village with an inheritance and aspirations that alienate her mother in law, amuse her brother in law Joe and bemuse her husband. Meanwhile Luther discovers that he’s made another village girl pregnant.
The play is brilliant about the shifts of power within a family and contains a duologue between a husband and wife that’s so fuelled with mutual loathing that it’s deeply uncomfortable to watch.
Although it was written more than 100 years ago there’s so much about the relationships that you’ll probably relate to from your own life. The two older women keeping things together through a mixture of wisdom, selflessness and bullying, the friendship and antagonism between two brothers, rivalry between daughter and mother-in-law, and that, all-too-real toxic marriage.
Director Jack Gamble keeps things bubbling away at naturalistic room-temperature so that you always feel you're eavesdropping on actual people rather than actors.
The cast is utterly convincing. Matthew Biddulph is adorable as the larky younger brother, Mathew Barker exudes misery from every pore as the troubled husband, Veronica Roberts and Tess Bell-Briggs are like slabs of working class granite as the matriarchs and Ellie Nunn characterises the conflicted and complex Minne with much nuance and colour.
The production moves to the largest performance space at the Arcola from the smallest. They’ve a lot of seats to fill, so help them out and book today.
You’ll have a fascinating evening of working class melodrama and first class up-close acting.
Annie Jenkins' first full-length play, which was workshopped in 2016 and shortlisted for the Theatre503 Award, gets an eagerly awaited full production from the Up In Arms touring theatre company team, but they are staying put at the Pleasance Theatre with In Lipstick until the end of January.