THE HOUSE THEY GREW UP IN

THE HOUSE THEY GREW UP IN

Chichester Festival Theatre at the Minerva

15.07.2017

“What has happened to us?”, the siblings ruefully wonder.

They're stuck in confused, reclusive routine, existing among the clutter of a lifetime in their childhood home, their parents dead. The sister seems to dominate, mothering her brother, feeding him on the fish prepared for Charlie Brown their elusive cat. He takes refuge in his headphones.

Deborah Bruce's new play – inspired by a couple she observed in an art gallery café – manages to be amusing and uplifting as well as deeply sad.

Daniel and Peppy's lives are turned around by a predictable incident, which makes a crime scene of their squalid home, searched by sinister officers in blue overalls. But just as things seem at their most desperate, there comes salvation and a new start of sorts.

Jeremy Herrin's production is perfectly judged. The design [Max Jones] is magnificent, with a stunning scene change just before the interval.

The dramatic structure is powerfully precise. Symbols are tellingly deployed. We see the kitchen tap run free once more, the child's smashed Harry Potter mug [magic destroyed] is restored, the walnut spice cake is baked at last, as Daniel realises that it's nice outside, and that there are other buses he could take. Peppy bangs on Charlie Brown's dish one last time, his name heading a roll-call of the dead.

The two main characters are compelling brought to life by Daniel Ryan as the big, childlike, uncoordinated brother and Samantha Spiro as his fussy, birdlike sister. The other characters drift in and out – and we occasionally move next door to a kitchen that couldn't be more different. There is some doubling – Philip Wright is both the awful, cheery Gareth, who tries to buy the Angelis family home for a fraction of its worth, and the helpful husband of the lovely support worker Karen [Michelle Greenidge]. And perhaps there could have been more – I can envisage a production in which two actors play all the other roles. Except of course for “the next-door child”.

This pivotal character, the eight-year-old Ben, superbly played by Rudi Millard, is in some ways a miniature of Daniel, innocently impressed by his feats of memory, seeking the attention and affection lacking at home.

His mother - “no smoke without fire” - who turns out to have tragedies of her own – is Mary Stockley; the detective who tries to coax incriminating confidences from Ben and Daniel is Matt Sutton.

Like their real-life inspiration, these two strange characters, and their intriguing past lives, tend to linger in the memory. Like the playwright, we realise how little we know of other people we meet, and hope against hope that, against all odds, redemption and a happy ending may still be possible.

Peppy's mother's Walnut Spice Cake 

[with thanks and apologies to Carol, who made it]

This is a lovely cake that smells like winter - warm walnuts and spices like allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg. Buttermilk ensures that the cake is wonderfully moist. If you don't have buttermilk, use 1 tablespoon (15ml) of lemon juice or vinegar and 210ml of skimmed milk in place of the 225ml of buttermilk.

Serves: 14

60g finely chopped walnuts

285g cake flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

150g butter

300g dark brown soft sugar

2 eggs

225g buttermilk

Prep:15min › Cook:50min › Extra time:10min cooling › Ready in:1hr15min

Preheat oven to 180 C / Gas 4. Grease a 23cm tube cake tin and dust with flour.

Sift together cake flour, bicarbonate of soda, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg and salt. Cream the butter. Blend in dark brown soft sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs.

Stir dry ingredients into creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. Blend in the finely chopped walnuts.

Spoon cake mixture gently into the prepared tin. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until cake springs back when you touch it lightly. Cool in tin for about 10 minutes. Put on cake rack to cool completely. Sprinkle icing sugar over cake before serving, if desired.