Do not go and see this play

Till The Stars Come Down
Theatre Royal Haymarket, London, until September 27

My fellow critics raved about Till The Stars Come Down when it opened at the National Theatre last year, but I wonder, now that I have finally caught up with it in its West End incarnation, what it was they had all got so excited about.

The idea of a group of people getting together and loathing each other is scarcely new and Beth Steel’s drama is essentially Abigail’s Party relocated to the north of England.

Characters talk about how they wouldn’t kick each other out of bed for farting and the audience laughs – good grief, they even tittered the night I was in when one of the protagonists just announced she wanted to sit down – and I could only conclude they had all succumbed to some sort of mass hypnosis: “Look into my eyes, and only my eyes, you are going to find this utter rubbish utterly hilarious.”

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Sitting in the crowd, yearning for something fun

Tim Walker

This is an Emperor’s-new-clothes sort of a play – they come along every now and again – and this one needs someone to actually act in the best interests of the long-suffering punters and tell them they’d be better off investing in tickets for another show.

It is set around the wedding of Sylvia and Marek – played by Sinead Matthews and Julian Kostov – and it’s a grisly affair where members of their respective families and hangers on bicker and vomit and the couple themselves stylishly decide there is no need to wait until they get to their hotel suite before they have sex.

Bijan Sheibani’s direction is conscientious but there is no disguising the fact that what is being served up is distinctly unappetising and reinforces rather than challenges unhelpful northern stereotypes that should have no place on a London stage.