A celebratory family get-together leads to an almighty conflagration in Morna Young’s play. The birthday party reunion is a well-worn storytelling trope for explosive family reckonings – the Traverse featured another such party this time last year with Consumed, directed by Katie Posner, who helms this production, too.
Co-created by Young and Alex Fthenakis, the twist here is that flamboyant matriarch Vivienne (Alison Peebles), known as “glam-ma” to her grandchildren, is throwing an 80th birthday party and then plans to die the very next day. She has terminal cancer so has arranged her death, although we are not told how she has managed that, given assisted dying is currently illegal in Scotland, as well as England and Wales. Is this a near or alternate future – or merely wishful thinking?
