Theatre review: The Southbury Child

Continuing an unprecedented run of two whole not-terrible original plays at the Bridge Theatre, Stephen Beresford's The Southbury Child comes to London after premiering in Chichester. Nicholas Hytner directs regular collaborator Alex Jennings for the first time at his own venue, as vicar David Highland, who's served the parish of a small Devon town for so many years his whole family call it home. At one point the town was a fishing and industrial community, but is now starkly divided on economic lines - the scenic riverside houses are second homes for the wealthy, while in the more derelict parts of town the locals scrape by at call centres, as cleaners or on benefits. David holds a position somewhere between the two classes, who do have one thing in common: Most of them never go anywhere near his church except for christenings, weddings and funerals.

It's the latter that's causing tensions as the play begins: David's drinking problem and tendency to cheat on his wife Mary (Phoebe Nicholls) haven't really bothered his parishioners, but when a child who's been terminally ill for some time finally dies, he refuses to let the family decorate the church with helium balloons covered in her beloved Disney characters.

In the leadup to the funeral this explodes into an outraged social media campaign targeting David, with graffiti on the vicarage walls, shit through the letterbox and escalating threats. But for once in his life the vicar digs his heels in, partly because he thinks the balloons would insult the dignity and sanctity of the mediaeval church, but also because he thinks it would defeat the purpose of the service to turn it into a fairytale ending, and the family wouldn't get the closure they need. The diocese officially backs him, but they also send a new curate, Craig (Jack Greenlees,) to support him - the barely-concealed true intention being that he's been lined up to replace him.

Beresford surrounds Jennings with a fairly large cast including David's daughters Susannah (Jo Herbert) and Naomi (Racheal Ofori,) local busybody Janet (Hermione Gulliford,) who takes over the balloon campaign like a one-woman mumsnet, and pragmatic, pregnant policewoman Joy (Holly Atkins.) David finds some solace in sharing his pariah status with the dead child's uncle Lee (Josh Finan,) who's been persona non grata with his family after making an ill-advised comment. It's notable how little we actually see Sarah Twomey's grieving mother Tina: Much of the furore has built up for reasons that have little to do with supporting her wishes.

Mark Thompson's kitchen set is dominated by the ancient church that looms over it; and as an "issues" play, The Southbury Child functions best when dealing with the question of where the Church of England fits into the 21st century, from David's empty pews and whether the institution still gets to have the final say on the right way to grieve, to Craig's conflict over the fact that while the Church will accept a gay vicar, it's only under the understanding that he doesn't actually marry his partner. Mary and Susannah have both been to some degree worn down by lives connected to the Church, and the play touches on the fact that if and when David is discreetly retired off, his wife and daughter will also lose the home they've lived in for the last couple of decades. Adopted black daughter Naomi is more of a wildcard who has a better understanding of what it's like to grow up in the South West as an outsider, but the plot about her contacting her birth mother is barely sketched out.

If it doesn't quite click as a state-of-the-nation or even state-of-the-Church play, it does succeed as an old-fashioned (not in a bad way) entertainment balancing its drama with a lot of funny lines. Beresford's plotting is very precise - at times it feels a bit too much so, as we can see how the carefully laid-out foreshadowing plays out and throwaway lines click into place. But this seeming predictability does pay off when he throws in a plot twist that plays on the way the audience expects the story to pan out, and from the back of the second gallery I could see wide mouths all the way down to the stalls.

The Southbury Child by Stephen Beresford is booking until the 27th of August at the Bridge Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 35 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.