Timothée Chalamet and Eileen Atkins were fully rehearsed for this family drama at London’s Old Vic when theatres closed due to Covid in 2020. After its eventual cancellation, Atkins picks up her role as 91-year-old Greenwich Village lefty Vera, directed instead by Richard Eyre in Chichester, opposite Heartstopper’s Sebastian Croft in lieu of Chalamet.
Croft plays Vera’s 21-year-old grandson, Leo, who arrives out of the blue after a cross-country bike ride. Leo has hauled plenty of baggage with him, which is unpacked over several weeks. Amy Herzog’s 2011 play (a Pulitzer finalist) may have the familiar premise of odd couple flatmates but is distinguished by their startling topics of conversation: the amount of tongue, for example, used in Leo’s recent kiss with his adopted sister, or how his girlfriend Bec has “kind of a weird pussy”.
