Theatre review: Jumpy at the Duke of York's

Her job is under threat, her husband’s business isn’t going well, her fifteen year old daughter is in a permanent strop and there’s absolutely no way her best friend (Frances, an unsuccessful actress) is going to grow old gracefully.

Though laughter predominates in Nina Raine’s pacey production, there’s poignancy too, with the middle-aged men floundering as much as the women, and the youngsters shrugging off the impact of violent loss and motherhood far too early in their materially comfortable middleclass lives.

In a predominantly unchanged cast, Tamsin Greig is on superb form as menopausal Hilary, trying (with the aid of too many glasses of blunting wine) and failing to resurrect the Greenham Common idealism which seems to have faded along with her vanished youth.

Bel Powley’s self-absorbed teenager totters around in skyscraper platforms and micro minis, a constant reminder of the decades which separate her from her mother, and Doon Mackichan’s sex mad, irrepressible Frances abandons all sense of decorum in an OTT burlesque sequence which reveals all the desperation of a woman who still wants to be noticed.  

Duke of York’s, St Martin’s Lane, WC2N 4BG
Tube: Charing Cross / Leicester Square
Until 3rd November £15 - £52.50
jumpytheplay.com