Relics
At first glance, Ben Ockrent’s family drama Relics has it all. There’s the starry cast (Sally Phillips! Charly Clive!), and big name director Michael Longhurst. Even Joanna Scotcher’s richly layered set, slowly revealed as a screen lifts to show off the deep wood panels and sentimental knick knacks of a beloved home where secrets lie, offers a sense of intricately selected prestige.
Yet before the action even kicks off, a more accurate indicator of what’s to come sits in plain sight. Said screen is embellished with giant pieces of packing tape, bearing the not-so-delicate message: ‘FRAGILE’. You see, for a play about four adult siblings coming together to divvy up their late mother’s possessions beneath a cloud of grief (which later attempts to reckon with huge philosophical ideas around profiting from evil of the past), Relics is remarkably low on subtlety.
At times, the show is pure farce. There are Mr Bean-esque physical comedy set pieces, and some of them, particularly early in the play, are tightly choreographed and slick. But as the bigger ideas are introduced, a tonal mishmash emerges that leaves the cast struggling to mine comedy or tragedy successfully. The former becomes sloppy, and those loudly proclaimed deeper moments fail to find the nuance clearly being aimed for.
To their credit, the cast of four try their best with the material. You can feel the effort being put in from all four leads. Yet from their movements to their clothes, the siblings are broad...
