Theatre review: Kimberly Akimbo

A multiple Tony-winner gets a comparatively low-key European premiere as David Lindsay-Abaire (book and lyrics) and Jeanine Tesori's (music) Kimberly Akimbo opens at Hampstead Theatre in Michael Longhurst's glossy but intimate production. The title character turns 16 during the course of the story but she's played by 66-year-old Maria Friedman because Kimberly Levaco has a rare, unspecified genetic disorder that makes her age at 4-5 times the normal rate. And 16 is the average life expectancy of someone with her condition, so she has to deal with her own mortality at the same time as social awkwardness and first romances because she doesn't have long left. But rather than rest on what could be a rather maudlin subject, Lindsay-Abaire and Tesori have instead surrounded Kimberly with an anarchic family life that doesn't shy away from some darker moments but is also full of comedy and ridiculous adventures.

Theatre review: Rabbit Hole

American playwright David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole has had a bit of a stuttering journey to the London stage - a couple of years ago a big West End production was announced, only to get cancelled almost as soon as it went on sale. Now, after the venue had a hit with Lindsay-Abaire's Good People, Hampstead Theatre becomes the natural home for his family drama of grief. We open with a domestic scene as Becca (Claire Skinner) washes and folds a child's clothes as her sister Izzy (Georgina Rich) catches her up with her latest personal dramas. This surface of normality is hard-bought though, as it turns out Becca is getting the clothes ready to take to charity, her 4-year-old son having run out into traffic and died eight months earlier. She and her husband Howie (Tom Goodman-Hill) are both trying to deal with the loss in their own ways, but their different coping strategies are putting a strain on their relationship.

Theatre review: Good People

Class comedy is a particularly British genre but there's an American variant as well, often puncturing the aspirational clichés of the American Dream. David Lindsay-Abaire's comedy-drama Good People opens with a woman who's far from living that dream, as Margie (Imelda Staunton) loses her minimum-wage job at a dollar store for being late one time too many. It's been the story of her life ever since she got pregnant in her teens and had a premature, brain-damaged baby. Today her daughter is grown up but still has the mind of a child, and problems arranging a carer have led to Margie losing one job after another. It seems a bleak setup but Margie is a fighter, and surrounded by friends with big mouths and questionable loyalties, her search for work is peppered with acidic one-liners. Especially when an old boyfriend returns to town and a couple of new options present themselves.