A tour de force production displaying theatrical excellence throughout
Till the Stars Come Down is a new play written by Beth Steel and directed by Bijan Sheibani. The play tells the story of a semi-dysfunctional family (as all families really are) on the wedding day of one of the three sisters to a Polish man. It explores topics of poverty, racism, grief, and love. All sounds quite heavy, but it is absolutely hilarious, which makes the more dramatic moments hit even harder.
This show takes place over the course of 1 day, but it only took me 10 minutes to fall in love with these characters and immediately understand all of their relationships to each other. The writing, direction, and performances all came together to make these characters seem like a very real family with a history and pre-existing complex relationships. The humour between them is crass, ridiculous, and hilarious. Sometimes shows around working-class characters can easily fall into cliches and caricatures with them either nobly struggling or bitterly resentful of the world, but this show does not let a single character be two dimensional. All of the characters are fully fleshed out with no one being an outright villain nor an outright hero. They are complicated and make mistakes.
The performances in this show were all exceptional. A stand-out character is Aunty Carol played by Lorraine Ashbourne. She arrives early in the first act like a hurricane and brings even more frenetic energy to the show. She has the best on liners, all delivered brilliantly, and is the comic heartbeat of the show. Far from just being comic relief, Ashbourne imbues the character with a certain desperation and longing, which sets up the more serious heartbreaking moments of her longing over a man she cannot have. Sinéad Matthews also plays the nervous bride Sylvia fantastically and immediately makes you warm to her. All in all, there was not a single bad performance in the show and the entire cast deserves plaudits.
It goes without saying that a play lives and dies by its script, so by that metric this play should live on forever. I have already ordered the script of this show (thank god for the National Theatre shop) because I just have to read it and fully digest it all. The mixture of light hearted comedy and extreme emotion was written so well and Beth Steel has definitely got a new fan in me. Praise also has to go to Bijan Sheibani for bringing this wonderful script to life. The chaos of a wedding day was shown so well and the building of kinetic energy kept my attention throughout, and helped to highlight the quieter more poignant moments.
The set looked deceptively simple, with a grass floor and white circle in the centre, but the rotating centre of the stage was used brilliantly and sparingly to create some really effective moments. The practicality aspect of rotating the central table on which all the characters were sitting having the wedding breakfast was really clever, giving the audience the opportunity to see all of the actors without having to have them sitting like it was the last supper. But also, for the more theatrical moments, such as the solar system section, utilised the revolving centre of the stage to brilliant effect.
This show is a tour de force in which everyone involved seemed to be at the very top of their game. I cannot remember another recent occasion where I have been so enraptured by a play, and I was not the only one. There was a palpable energy in the audience throughout, with spontaneous gasps and exclamations at certain moments. If you like theatre of any kind, I recommend this show to you.
Till the Stars Come Down is playing at the Dorfman Theatre at the National Theatre until the 16th March.