Len’s on his death bed and the family gather to say their final farewells. His sisters still aren’t speaking after nearly 20 years, his nephew’s trying for a baby – and a bigger house, while his best mate Ken remembers ‘Bas-vegas’ when it was a village. As the spread is laid out and the ham sandwiches sit next to the wreaths, it’s hard to see who’s hungry and who’s just greedy.
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Reviews
The Evening Standard
Henry Hitchings
"Eldridge's script contains moments of pungent humour. Yet it's not just a chorus of guffaws. Instead of recycling stereotypes, he probes or shatters them. The results aren't always easy to watch, but this is a piece packed with unsettling symmetries. A tepid final act adds little ... [and] the drama loses some of its momentum and fizz. Still, In Basildon is scrupulously observed, and the acting is first-rate."
23/02/2012
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The Independent
Paul Taylor
"Eldridge's admirable aim is to give a platform to the white working classes of his native Essex who, in committing the sin of tending towards the right wing in their sympathies, are denied a hearing by the lumpenly liberal theatrical establishment ... Eldridge is in a prime position to tackle this material from the double perspective of comic detachment and raw, painful ambivalence."
23/02/2012
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The Stage
Aleks Sierz
"As a state-of-the-nation play it is accurate and compelling, and as a family drama it burns with emotional truth. If most of the characters are not likeable, they are certainly fully imagined."
23/02/2012
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The Times
Libby Purves
"The comedy is at times considerable, as love, death, home and inheritance can spark passions powerful enough to propel whole bowls of jellied eels from funeral table to an enemy’s hairdo, and a sharp script is directed with spot-on timing by Dominic Cooke. "
23/02/2012
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The Guardian
Michael Billington
"This richly observant play is given a near-perfect production by Dominic Cooke who, with designer Ian MacNeil, restructures the Court so that the audience, like the family, is divided in two.
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23/02/2012
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The Observer
Susannah Clapp
"Passes itself off as a richly enjoyable play about family dysfunction, in which there is always a haplessly suggestive next-door neighbour to proclaim: "My spread is open…"
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26/02/2012
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The Sunday Times
Christopher Hart
"It’s laudable that the Royal Court should try to transport us to Basildon at all, a place as exotic and alien to many a theatregoer as Papua New Guinea.
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26/02/2012
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The Financial Times
Ian Shuttleworh
"Eldridge seems too close to his subject to be at ease dramatising it. Political arguments, for instance, seem almost brutally injected into the proceedings; if this is deliberate, it is ill-considered. Eldridge is now one of our major playwrights, but I am unconvinced that In Basildon is one of his major plays.
"
23/02/2012
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The Daily Mail
Quentin Letts
"Once or twice it is as though Mr Eldridge has pasted in sentences from a social guide to the county. Yet he also has a good, wry ear for dialogue. A vicar arrives to help the family prepare for the funeral. You never saw someone, let alone a clergyman, become quite so tipsy on whisky in such a short time. Holy spirits, indeed.
"
23/02/2012
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The Independent on Sunday
Kate Bassett
"There are dozens of explosively funny lines. Yet the hooting laughter at the Royal Court's press night felt, to me, condescending at points, and Eldridge's characters can lapse into cliché.
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26/02/2012
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