In Beth Steel’s uproariously enthralling new play, a wedding unlocks family tensions and wider historic and social schisms in a former Nottinghamshire mining community. Bijan Sheibani’s full-throated production is the latest at the National to feature an absolutely stunning ensemble.
It’s no accident that the play centres on three sisters; Steel creates a Chekhovian blend of comedy and tragedy, amped up by booze and ribald East Midlands bluntness. One of these women married a man because he looked at her “like a potato in a famine”.
