Review: TILL THE STARS COME DOWN, National Theatre

Beth Steel has the unique accolade of being the only writer whose play that I’ve walked out of. Her House of Shades, that premiered at the Almeida in 2022, was such an orgy of darkness that I found myself yearning for the remnants of the evening embers.

But Till the Stars Come Down, her new play at The National Theatre, is a sparkling bundle of light and luminous love. If you don’t believe me, believe the colossal disco ball hovering above the stage.

We are in Mansfield for Sylvia’s wedding day to Marek, a Polish immigrant ambitiously working his way up the careers ladder whilst her family sag at the bottom. But today is for celebration. Bucks Fizz swills - and nails are painted neon pink as the bride prepares with her sisters and nieces. The setup echoes DH Lawrence’s The Rainbow but this is firmly entrenched in the present.

History reverberates beneath the rituals. Sylvia’s family’s grief for their dead mother, her sister Maggie’s distance from her absent son, and her father Tony’s livelihood as a miner all swell and echo beneath the surface and the shenanigans: Sylvia can’t fit into her wedding dress and a cat has attacked Aunty Carol’s extravagant hat.

As the day unfolds the tectonic plates brush against each other. An earthquake is inevitable. Steel’s writing fluctuates between sitcom levity and sentimentality. The fantastically boisterous Aunty Carol, attuned to perfection by Lorraine Ashbourne, brings the levity, but the whole cast straddle a tender nuance between the two. Their bickering is flecked with vinegary wit but their outpourings are deliciously sugar coated.

The family’s casually racist treatment of Marek poises itself to be the crux: “Are you a victim or a superior” he retorts to Sylvia’s sister Hazel after she ignorantly belittles him - not so much neatly tying together the themes of class, community, and victimhood, but hurling them at each other.

But instead the real pulse of Till the Stars Fall Down beats with its working-class female characters. They are swept up in their own tragedies, not matter how manic, messy, horny or old they are. Weight and depth are not monopolised by the men who stoically suck up their misery - a refreshing departure from a male dominated convention.

It’s just a shame that whilst Steel knows how to work the drama, cooking it up to boiling point only to catch us off guard and throw in another ingredient, the emotional gut punches never quite feel earned. The final knife twist lacks justification. The writing risks winding itself up into predictable tensions, albeit beautifully executed on stage in Bijan Sheibani’s lustrous production.

In any case, this time I found myself yearning for more.

Till the Stars Come Down plays at The National Theatre until 16 March

Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan

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