California Dreaming
The Hills of California A Jez Butterworth play comes with high expectations. As usual I deliberately hadn’t looked at reviews although I did see a lot of 4 stars so I was seated and ready, as was the youngish (good) but quite noisy (bad) audience. The play is set completely in the Seaview Guesthouse (previously Seaview Guesthouse and Spa - but with no view of the sea). And we open in the public lounge - a seventies classic with broken jukebox and a tropical themed bar. Three of the family’s four daughters are assembling as their mother Veronica lies dying upstairs. It’s Blackpool in the midst of the drought of 1976 and everybody is very very hot. This first scene tells us a lot about the family dynamics (mother upstairs is still keeping up appearances wearing her wig) and the women are arguing about whether Joan, who moved to California 20 years ago and has never been back, will show. So, a family drama about grief and loss mixed in with a lot of family dynamics....