The Southbury Child - Chichester Festival / Bridge Theatre

Was at Jack Absolute last night and attendance was equally low.

I put this down to the heat and travel restrictions as there were significantly less people ambling along the southbank as I made my way to the theatre.

It has now appeared in the Central tickets club, along with Doll's house- so definitely getting a bit desperate to get the theatre full.

The auditorium was less than half full on Friday night, which is a crying shame for such a cracking play. The audience was mainly an older crowd too. Don't youngsters appreciate good theatre any more? Attracting the under 40s to straight plays has always been a problem in the provinces, but it seems to have infected London too. I presume it shows that the cost-of-living crisis is disproportionately hitting younger people.

I concur with others that the cast are first-rate, especially Jennings and Nicholls. The story is engaging throughout, although I struggled to believe that the mother and stepfather of the Southbury child would behave in quite the way they do when confronted by loss and a vicar and his family being so supportive.

I loved the character of the interfering Jan, driven by loneliness into misguided do-gooding, and who is something of a monster. I think we've all met people just like Jan and can shudder in horror.

The play is a mere smidgen away from being a five-star. So much is very well observed and insightful, but there are one or two lapses in verisimilitude that damage the piece overall. It's very much recommended nevertheless.

From the front row, side stalls, I found myself having to peer round seated or stationary characters for a few minutes at a time, but these are excellent value for money at £25.

Four stars.

Act 1: 19:30-20:34
Act 2: 20:53-21:56
(I think someone wanted to get home quickly, given the very prompt start and slightly shortened interval!)

Having seen this at last at today's matinee (booking held over from last year), I endorse but can't improve on the recent positive comments. It's a messy play, a bit melodramatic towards the end but consistently engaging and full of interesting, well-developed and varied characters, all seemingly at loggerheads with each other. I did feel a couple of the women were almost too intense and I wondered why the vicar and his wife ever got together or remained so but this is the sort of play I go to the theatre hoping to see and very rewarding.

You noticed this too, so it was not my impression...I have observed this a few times at the Bridge (Bach and sons was the same, A Number, even White Noise) for some reason it attracts an older crowd and dare I say, less diverse than any other theatre I've been in so far. I was wondering why this is, can it be the type of plays? Maybe a show about the Church wouldn't interest younger people- in this case.

sounds about right. I noticed that the audience at the Bridge tends to be older, mostly white and, dare I say, very posh! when I went, there was a guy outside smoking a pipe lol -

I struggled a bit with this.

Great acting all round, moving final scenes, some laugh-out-loud moments in the story.

But my main problem with it was: why wouldn’t a guy as bright as David try to strike a compromise with the family? Balloons outside the church? A few balloons on the close family’s pew only? It felt like a small gesture that wouldn’t have offset the vicar’s point of view too much either.

That would, of course, have rendered the play redundant. But I couldn’t help but feel maybe there was a more interesting story to be told in the Southbury family’s response to Lee’s actions…

That’s interesting. Do you feel he was wrong?

Because I didn’t, entirely. It felt like the family only wanted all those balloons to make them feel ‘good’ about the event, if I can put it that way. I mean, surely they could have had a balloon-filled ceremony in a non-religious setting? 

My view would be that by choosing a church ceremony, you have to accept the Church gets a say in what’s allowed.

I guess the final scenes knit together that both sides were right in a way.

But following a couple of people back to the station afterwards (in a non-stalkery way!), they seemed to be discussing whether the vicar had been ‘punished enough’ by





And that felt weird to me, because I didn’t feel he deserved to be ‘punished’ - not for the balloon thing, anyway.

I thought this was great. I didn’t have any issues with the vicars stance on the funeral, I think he explained his perspective very well and chose to draw the line of what’s acceptable in a church and what’s not, resolutely resisting disagreement from a community of people that aren’t even really part of his small congregation. All the actors were great, I thought the writing was good, and in act two when that “moment” happens it was genuinely an incredibly dramatic and well directed sequence. The final scene was excellent, not least because I love it when the size of the cast doubles just to pull off the last few minutes of something (The Inheritance Part 1, I’m looking at you…)

It’s criminal that it was so poorly attended. Young people do turn up to this theatre (eg for the Shakespeare stuff they gathered a younger crowd) but not for the very National Theatreish fare this is clearly a part of. I’m not sure if you can fix it, other than by casting young film stars unnecessarily. It’s a great shame.

I enjoyed this a lot but found the writing contrived and at times downright untruthful. That though didn’t stop our enjoyment of it.