Till the Stars Come Down at the Haymarket: uproariously fun and profoundly moving

The cast of Till the Stars Come Down - (Manuel Harlan)

“Wouldn’t be much of a wedding without a punch-up,” is one of the many zingers in Beth Steel’s demotically witty and profoundly affecting play, which unpacks a great deal of social history through a Nottinghamshire summer nuptial.

Bijan Sheibani’s now partially recast production was a hit at the National Theatre’s smallest auditorium last February and has lost a little intimacy in the transfer to the Theatre Royal Haymarket – where onstage seating again makes us complicit wedding guests – but none of its power. What a time to be alive, when this, Evita, and Stereophonic can all coexist in the West End.