Till the Stars Come Down
Theatre Royal Haymarket
★★★★★

IT’s a landmark moment when a play like Beth Steel’s Till The Stars Come Down transfers to the West End.

For a start, it still carries all the outstanding attributes that made it such a hit when it premiered at the National Theatre in early 2024. It’s also a genuine state-of-the-nation play, restoring integrity to a West End so often obsessed with commercialism.

Set in Mansfield at a family wedding, it feels at first like an uproarious comedy where an array of very real, delightfully outspoken, sweary characters ludicrously array themselves in hats and ties and painful shoes in honour of bride Sylvia, who is to marry local Polish worker, Marek. The beautifully judged humour and the totally recognisable wedding clichés are in themselves a source of unfettered enjoyment.

But this is not all. For as the laughter takes hold and the characters deepen, we realise this is no mere situation comedy. Instead, these are real people speaking for many like them in real abandoned towns, where thriving mining communities once gave purpose to generations of the working classes, but where employment is now a struggle and the future bleak.    

Staged by Samal Black in the round just as it was at the National, Bijan Sheibani’s production fizzes with energy, even though the Haymarket proscenium arch serves it slightly less well than the more flexible Dorfman. But this is a slight gripe which I’m sure goes unnoticed by the West End audience powered along by the ceaseless action, vivid characters and cracking lines. And the hard truth, as it emerges organically from the safer place of laughter, grips us by the throat.  

Some cast changes only serve to enhance. Aisling Loftus (star of the National’s Small Island) expertly balances humour with heartbreak as Maggie; John – he, whose never to be forgiven crime was to have crossed a picket line years ago – is brought fully to life by Adrian Bower; gobby Aunty Carol who, in the hands of Dorothy Atkinson, brings verve to the comedy; and Julian Kostov who brings range and passion, as well as an excellent comic touch, to poor Marek, who experiences racism from the wedding guests even as he marries the girl.

Of the original cast, Alan Williams reveals layers of depth as the desolate Tony, father of the bride; Philip Whitchurch’s Uncle Pete forever seems to embody the mine closures of 40 years ago as if they were a defining evolutionary stage; Sinead Matthews beautifully portrays the put-upon bride; Lucy Black as Hazel powerfully hits breathtaking new dramatic levels in the final climax while Cadence Williams and Ruby Stokes unexpectedly shape the action as the younger generation who don’t remember the mines but steadfastly carry humanity forward as predictably as the planets spin in the universe... or at least until the stars come down.  

This play – while joyously entertaining – gives voice to those unheard in Britain who are somehow remembered in the politics of yesterday but never, it seems, properly recognised or represented in the politics of today. 

Runs until September 27. Box Office: 020 7930 8800, trh.co.uk