A family drama interrogating the age-old question: which is more important – love or lucre?
We all know someone, or someone who knows someone, who has become entangled in a clash over a will. There is the delicate maneuvering around the contents, the hushed respect for the deceased, before it emerges that there are some slight differences of opinion. Delicacy then promptly goes out the window.
Relics, a new play by Ben Ockrent, is a perceptive and often laugh-out-loud take on this family saga. Four siblings turn up to their deceased mother’s house in order to divvy up its contents and get a surprise when it turns out the gloomy painting everyone used to hate is a lost masterpiece, acquired in extremely ethically dubious circumstances.
The siblings are each true to their place within the family, from the over-functioning oldest sister Liv (Sally Phillips), to the rebellious youngest child, Michelle (Charly Clive). In between are the opposites Rob (Sam Swainsbury) and Jonny (JJ Field), the one anxiously placating everyone else until he defiantly bursts out into a haka to soothe his anxiety, the latter arrogant and self-absorbed. After barely seeing his family, the gilet-ed Jonny seems to be there to mend bridges, until it becomes clear that his interest in the painting is far from sentimental.
Ockrent captures the painful nuance within family relationships, where expectations and loyalties have become twisted and unmet. Sibling bonds can be one of the most beautiful of relationships – and the most bitter. The cast brilliantly captures the way a shared childhood casts a shadow over adult relationships that is both dark with unresolved trauma and then, in the most unexpected moments, cooling relief – the relief of shared humour, understanding, and karaoke (Clive’s karaoke alone makes the play worth seeing.)
The beginning felt a little slow, with moments of physical comedy that were over-egged (there’s only so much humour that can be strung out of struggling with sticky tape.) However, it did do a sterling job at setting up the particularities of the Venn diagram of sibling dynamics. The second half more than made up for any slight laboriousness in both comedy and emotional impact. Field was particularly compelling in his portrayal of the smooth-talking Jonny’s descent into taking off a gilet that seemed melded to his form – and with it his dignity and emotional detachment.
The play explores how getting older involves a divergence of values that become painfully stark in moments such as these. For the siblings, the reality of what matters – family, morality, the challenges of real financial hardship or the allure of just that bit more cash – becomes avoidable. Phillips perfectly captured the heartbreak of the sibling who clings to an idea of what the morals of the family are, when they have long since been swallowed by the need for a new swimming pool. One flaw in the second half was the neglect of Rob and Michelle – they became backdrop figures for the central conflict of the differing moral compasses of Liv and Jonny.
Michael Longhurst’s direction crafts the play into a comedy that is nuanced, thoughtful and, at times, unabashedly raucous. Aided by an immensely skilled cast, it is a domestic drama that gradually accelerates into the explosiveness borne of that most potent of combinations within a family: love and hurt. Throw in the possibility of filthy lucre? It’s no wonder the mother’s healing crystal doesn’t realign the chakras of these four siblings.
Relics is at the Lyric Hammersmith until 18th July. Tickets linked here: https://lyric.co.uk/shows/relics/book-now/