Theatre review: Relics

It's not quite Paddington but Ben Ockrent's Relics also begins with a bear going on a journey: As the safety curtain goes up on Joanna Scotcher's set a teddy bear gets caught in it, before being dropped into a packing box. It's a metaphor for much of what happens in the next couple of hours, as cherished memories of childhood and family get unceremoniously turned upside down when four siblings meet at their family home, a week or so after their mother's funeral. They're dividing up the possessions they most want to keep before selling the house off, and quickly resolve themselves into the dynamic they've always shared: Eldest Olivia (Sally Phillips) has always been the one to take on most of the responsibility, but with that has come bossiness, and she's decided the way they're going to divvy everything up.

Theatre review: Breeders

Opening a new season for young producers at the St James Theatre is Ben Ockrent's new play Breeders, an appealing sitcom with a strong comedy cast. Self-help book writer Andrea (Tamzin Outhwaite) and family lawyer Caroline (Angela Griffin) are a well-off lesbian couple who've recently got married and bought a large fixer-upper house together, but with their biological clocks ticking they're starting to wish for a family to fill it with. Andrea's dream is that they can have what a straight couple does, a baby that shares both parents' DNA, but the only way to do that is for her brother Jimmy (Nicholas Burns) to be the sperm donor for Caro's pregnancy. He says yes, but when they can't agree over what his legal rights to the child will be the plan changes: He and his girlfriend Sharon (Jemima Rooper) will move in with the couple and they'll all raise the child together.