The curtains open on a beautiful 1950’s housewife, Judy, a slight woman with immaculately curled hair and starched pink floral pinafore, a coordinated outfit that is almost perfectly reflected in the creamy buttercup yellows of the kitchen behind her. She is placed in a wider set displaying the interior of a home that could have come straight out of a ‘50s homemaking magazine, with corresponding matching curtains and enamel fridges. Having made her husband, Jonny, a breakfast cooked to perfection and waved him out of the door, Judy contentedly removes her apron, folds the newspaper, and whips out a laptop from underneath the kitchen table.
Home, I’m Darling is a precise exploration of gender politics, nostalgia and escapism, presenting the unsolvable questions of the gender power balance and the underlying psychological effects of fantasy in a visceral, absorbing play. Set in the 21stcentury, it details the life of Judy, played by Katherine Parkinson, a woman who took voluntary redundancy to become a 1950s housewife for her husband, Jonny, played by Richard Harrison. On the pretense of nostalgia for an era much nobler than our own, one which values honesty, community and joy, she buries herself completely under enamel fridges, box televisions and frilly pinafores. The highlight of her day becomes her husband’s return, an activity for which she waits for hours, perfectly made-up, by the front door. She grows her own vegetables, makes her own marmalade and decants all her shopping from Tesco into antique tins and boxes. However, when Jonny misses the promotion needed to fund their fantasy, financial pressures begin to mount. As the secrets swept behind the chintz begin to build, even the most garish wallpaper can’t paste over the cracks that begin to form.
Whilst perhaps a little stiff in the opening act, Katherine Parkinson warmed up to present a believable Judy, clinging desperately to a history she had never lived in, filling up the stage and outshining the rest of the cast. The accompanying script was subtle and intricate, allowing for interpretation and nuance. The history of the narrative had the potential to become overbearing, as flashbacks took up a third of the play itself, but instead were handled delicately, creating a backstory than unfolded along with the real-time events. Almost every scene was built to a nail-biting crisis point, but the following aftermath was left open and quietly folded naturally into the plot. The conviction of Parkinson’s acting explored the boundaries of present-day feminism, asking whether voluntary adoption of the traditional gender stereotypes of the past could, in reality, be a form of feminist liberation in itself.
With so much of the narrative focused on the dancing of the 1950s, a subtle nod to the ancient Greek chorus was indicated through the presence of a couple, framed as a competitive dancing pair, who would whirl about the house at the opening and closing of each act. Reflecting the increasing loss of control felt by the protagonist and her deteriorating relationship with her husband, the pair’s pace and tone of their dances ebbed and flowed with the mood of the previous scene. It served to create a spectacle that was vibrant and fluid, giving the sense that the very set itself mimicked Judy’s own fantasy.
Overall, Laura Wade has successfully directed an intense, gripping exploration of the nostalgia attached with the 1950s, depicting the underlying psychological reasons for the near-universally felt desire for ‘the good old days’. The theme of escapism, relevant to our internet-reliant selves today, corresponded beautifully with the artificial pursuit of the smooth veneer of the past.
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