The Empty Nesters' Club, The New Vic - review and pictures
With a kitchen island at the focal point of the theatre-in-the-round and a generous audience gathered around, it felt like a full nest for the opening of John Godber's new play.
The evening begins with an appeal to the audience – "You are among friends. We're not alone on this journey" – and many were clearly won over. But I felt distinctly out of the nest and out of sorts with what followed.
Through a long three-hander retelling, Phil and Vicky's daughter Mollie is fast-tracked for Oxbridge, offered a place, turns it down in favour of a London college, drops out, returns home (with slob boyfriend), and departs for far-eastern gap experience (leaving boyfriend with her parents).
Vicky explains to the audience that it was all Phil's fault for playing Black Sabbath to Mollie when she was in the womb, instead of Mozart like the NCT recommended. But we also learn that Vicky spent £400 on Mollie's high-school prom dress while telling Phil she got it second-hand from the Oxfam shop.
And so it goes. We hear grumpy, put-upon Phil on the TripAdvisor approach to choosing a university, Phil on the horrors of student debt, Phil on the shortcomings of mobile-phone messaging. We see Vicky with yet another glass of wine in her hand saying "We're a bit full on aren't we?" and "We need to get out more."
The themes simply aren't that dramatic – whatever chords they strike with the part of the audience that recognises them. They're stretched out, slowed down, and belaboured. There was a loud guffaw from the audience at the mention of a river-cruise to Budapest and I suspect it came from a group who had done just that. And there's an interminable running gag about having to walk the dog.
The second half picks up some momentum and intensity as the emptiness of Phil and Vicky's marriage becomes clearer once Mollie has left home. But Vicky's repeated question of life "Is this it?" left me unengaged, let alone unsatisfied.
Her answer is to start The Empty Nesters' Club. Phil says it should be called the Sad and Skint Club. But Molly has a mission at last, to bring together all those poor suffering parents whose pampered children have left for uni. "It's massive when they're left alone and there's no help."
Massive? Really?
By John Hargreaves
