Home, I’m Darling
Dorfman Theatre, August 2018
Retro kitchen, retro house, retro frocks, retro car, retro life. We’ve all got a bit of Cath Kidston or a Roberts radio stashed somewhere in the house but would you transform your life into one from the 1950s?
Johnny (Richard Harrington) and Judy (Katherine Parkinson) are spectacularly happy in their 1950s bliss. She prepares breakfast, he eats it with a delirious smile on his face. He leaves with his lunchbox and hat. She gets the laptop out. (They buy all their retro stuff on eBay).
They have this perfect dance down. The choreography of each scene set up is wonderful and takes you back to the twee of Bewitched and I love Lucy.
But this is written by Laura Wade (she of Posh) and this is a brilliant dissection of feminism and the dichotomy of supposedly wanting to have it all.
Perfect timing. The rhetoric is now that we can’t. We need to have balance and partnership. We still need 2 salaries to survive in this crazy world.
My favourite scene is the mother talking about what the actual 50s were like. Sexism, racism, add your ism… Women were allowed to be raped legally if the husband fancied it yet she didn’t. (I’d read this before but it’s still a shocker.)
The costumes are stunning. Judy’s outfits and skirt hoops deserve their own mention. Superb wardrobe!
But this isn’t just about the 50s. This is about feminism and what it is. It’s about partnership in marriage and what that should be. It’s about the role of women in society and what that should be.
What I enjoyed about it was this wasn’t dressed up in dystopia this was dressed in twee. This didn’t need violence against women to make its point. Clever.
Super performances from all the cast.
4/5 A modern dissection of feminism. Fab.
**Special shout out to the man in the audience who laughed at the comment about sexual harassment. Our collective gasp hopefully put you right. 🤦🏼♀️
