When the Lilac Blooms, My Love

Synopsis

Set in modern-day suburbia. Nicky is a young woman who returns to the family home to break the news to her family that she is pregnant, taking the reluctant father-to-be with her. On meeting the family a web of hidden passions unfolds that challenges the bonds between them.

Our Review:

21 April 2010

When The Lilac Blooms, My Love is a new play starring Judy Cornwell (best known as Daisy in Keeping Up Appearances). Why an actress as distinguished as Cornwell has agreed to appear in such a piece of work, however, is beyond me.

Writer Jane Huxley’s premise is a good one – daughter returns home with new boyfriend to announce that she’s pregnant, but said boyfriend tries to run off with his girlfriend’s mother. Unfortunately, Huxley fills her script with stilted and clichéd dialogue which would feel more at home in a day-time soap opera than on a London stage.

With such underwhelming material you would have hoped that director Simon Beyer would have given the evening some pace, if only to get it over with more quickly. Instead, he draws everything out, creating no sense of drama and undermining any hope of the conflict the plot so desperately needs.

Cornwell is, as expected, excellent in the role of the dotty ...

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Latest User Review

Amanda Rutherfurd - 24 August 2010:

I was browsing when I came along these reviews. Interesting how two people can view the same play with such different results. Good. It creates debate. I thought it was superb in tackling what most authors would stay away from admitting the intricacies of human relationships. I thought the ensemble complimented each other. A profound subject with good witty remarks. A play not for everybody but just the discerning ones. ...

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