Little Theatre
9th March, 2026
Written by Laura Wade
Presented by the Progressive Players
Directed by Danny Stones
"Home, I'm Darling", as the title suggests is a play that purports to turn things on their head. it centres around married couple Judy and Johnny who, for reasons best known to themselves, have embarked on a lifestyle project to live completely in the 50s style. Begun as a six month experiment, they have embraced not just the style of the 50s in their house decor and clothes, but have also taken on the ethos of the 50s in their daily lives. JUdy stays at home and bakes, makes marmalade, cleans the home while Johnny goes out to work to earn money and provide for them. They make do and mend - their old fridge is a temperamental 1950s original, their 1950s TV has been cleverly adapted inside to play DVDs (they only watch 1950s movies on it - Doris Day and Rock Hutson).
Three years on and the "experiment" has become permanent. Everything they do is anchored in the past - no shopping in the modern new shopping centre, no mobile phones, no modern gadgets. Except for the laptop, of course - needed for Judy to source and buy all those lovely vintage items on ebay!
It should be idyllic. This after all is Judy's dream. But everything is not quite as perfect as it seems. Johnny is spotted eating pizza (God forbid!) in the hated new shopping centre, with a young woman, and Judy is quietly selling clothes on ebay and hiding letters under the kitchen sink... Her mother - a women's libber who marched for women's rights and actually lived through the 50s - is horrified by her daughter's choices and feels that Johnny must be behind it all, which couldn't be further from the truth. Judy's best friend Fran finds herself constantly compared to, and falling short of this domestic goddess.
When the modern world encroaches on her vintage lifestyle Judy's reaction is defensive and her smile seems a little brittle. Johnny meanwhile is struggling to justify this lifestyle choice at work and feels it has cost him a promotion. It all starts to get a bit tense.
I have to confess I struggle with this play - the concept of a modern woman willingly giving up a good job and her independence to stay at home and pander to her husband's every whim does not sit well with me. I don'tt find Judy, (Ashley Harvey) to be a convincing character - and perhaps that is intentional by the writer? I felt her backstory was so much more interesting than her perfect housewife persona.
I had a grudging sympathy for Johnny (Lewis Connor Ryan) as he doesn't ever seem entirely comfortable with his lot and is almost manipulated into accepting it. Yet another reversal within the play - the relationships between the male and female characters are not quite what you might expect.
What is impressive about this production is the set and the costumes. An almost perfectly reproduced 1950 home - with kitchen cabinet and huge fridge, kitsch wallpaper and vibrant colours, and Judy's dresses are to die for. The scene changes are done with humour - there's not much to change between scenes, cups and glasses are tidied away around the cast by a rather surly crew who I felt were as bemused by the whole show as I was!
And the sound track switches cleverly from 50s crooners in act one to modern pop in act two - symbolic of the shift within the play, as the facade of the idyll begins to slide.
Home I'm Darling runs until Saturday at the Little Theatre. Billed as a dark comedy, it has moments of humour, but on the whole I found it somewhat unsettling, and perhaps not in the way the writer intended.
Denise Sparrowhawk
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