Lay Down Your Cross review, Hampstead

All tea and no biscuits

Nick Payne's play about parallel worlds, Constellations, recently sold out the Royal Court upstairs and got fabulous reviews despite a shortfall between hype and actuality. His latest opus, Lay Down Your Cross, sticks to the here and now and delivers - or fails to - in a similar manner.

The simple story of a fractured family drawn together for the funeral of an Army son, is littered with gratuitous actions and changes of mood. The play opens with Tony fixing a projector and waiting for the arrival of his disenchanted and distanced daughter, Dawn, returning from Australia to bury her brother. Before she arrives, a pizza delivery man causes confusion by mistaking Tony's address - Flat 1, Number 49 - for house Number 1. What is the point of this? It is the first of a series of pointless plot twists and assertions.

Dawn is monosyllabic and angry. Employing illogical and banal arguments, she blames her father for her brother's suicide. One searches for deeper meaning - any meaning, actually - and surmises it's been lost in the bacon and the pork pies, the eggs, sandwiches and curries consumed across scenes. As the father, Andy de la Tour manfully struggles, searching and failing to find ballast in everyday dialogue. The wonderful Susan Wooldridge, as the mother, works her way through so many personality changes she may need a psychiatrist by the end of the run.

In conclusion: At £12 a ticket for top dollar acting, Hampstead Downstairs is always worth a look. This play will best work if you're squiffy, as the couple next to me, shaking with laughter through the whole grim performance, attest.

References
Hampstead Theatre

Hampstead Theatre is on Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London NW3 3EU. This production is now over.