Cast

Synopsis

World/UK Award Best New Comedy award 2018. 5* Reviews!!

How happily married are the happily married?

Judy and Johnny lead a 1950’s lifestyle, clothes, décor, appliances. She stays at home while Johnny works as an estate agent.

Every couple needs a little fantasy to keep their marriage sparkling. But behind the gingham curtains, being a domestic goddess is not as easy as it looks. There used to be a pleasant myth that women staying at home “to keep house “ had a nice , sheltered, easy time, the idea being that the infinite variety of domestic work could make it equally if not more attractive than a paid job. Day in day out routines, even in a small household, were assumed to be recognised and therefore rewarding. Is cleaning, cooking, shopping, laundry, etc classed as “real work”? In the modern battle for equal pay, the housework question lurks quietly in the background. Indeed, the idea of valuing housework at all is fraught. The social, cultural and economic liberation of women cannot meekly sidestep the question of housework. It doesn’t really matter whether one enjoys the act of cleaning the family toilet more or less than operating a photocopier. One of these actions has formal recognition and the other doesn’t.

Home I’m Darling’s writer, Laura Wade, is an award-winning playwright with productions for the stage and films including The Riot Club. She has created a sparkling, sad, terribly clever, and inventive play. There is laughter, fun and at times there is rockabilly dancing. What joy!!

Directors Notes

Home, I’m Darling was written by Laura Wade, an award-winning playwright and screenwriter. Her plays have been staged in London s West End theatres and major venues throughout Great Britain and Australia. Home I m Darling premiered in 2018 at Theatr Clwyd and it was an immediate success. I was fortunate enough to see it there and I loved it so much I bought a copy of the play before I left the theatre! It went on to win five-star reviews and awards before transferring to The Duke of York s Theatre in London then going on a national tour.

When the play opens, we are introduced to Judy and Johnny and their aspirational 1950s home. Judy has created a space where she tries to cut herself off from the outside world. The problem is that the big bad world keeps forcing its way in. Doris Day and Lucille Ball made looking after a home seem easy but behind the gingham curtains, being the domestic goddess is not as simple as it looks and is all that cleaning, shopping, cooking and laundry classed as ‘real work’? It doesn t matter whether one enjoys cleaning the family toilet more than operating a photocopier or less. One of these actions gets formal recognition and the other doesn’t. Here in 2024 the housework problem still lurks quietly in the background because, although you would think that by now we would have found a solution to it, we haven’t. But then maybe the ironing got in the way.

Those of us who grew up in the 1950s may not have been fortunate enough to have lived in a home where there was a gleaming kitchen and a happy dancing Doris Day look alike for a Mum, but we did have music. On the radio, on records and in the dance halls. Jive, Rock and Roll, Jitterbug and Swing. It s all here for you to enjoy!