Directed by Richard Eyre, the play unfolds on a design by Bob Crowley which reflects the huge garden that keeps social contact “out” and the family business “in,” just as how the Father (Rupert Everett) demands.
The Son (Jack Bardoe) grows up with his emotionally unavailable father, who is a Barrister, subsequently blinded in an accident and nursed until his final days through failing health by the Mother (Eleanor David).
We never learn their names, another distancing technique, but we watch as The Son grows from child to adulthood via boarding school. Marrying a divorcee, Elizabeth, (Allegra Marland) and giving up a writing career to be a Barrister and becoming as emotionally distant as his ageing father.
Rupert Everett delivers a stoic, brutal and acerbic performance as The Father, alongside his long-suffering wife. However, both of them seem a world away from parenting.
They never discuss his sight loss and only Elizabeth is brave enough to broach this amidst sharp intakes of breath.
There are cameo moments which work well; Julian Wadham as the primary head teacher is a fine example.
It is hard to connect emotionally with the characters and vignettes as they seem a world away, there is comedy in moments of harshness which perhaps dilute the pain and isolation of The Son that feel awkwardly out of place.
The final moments are without question touching, but the lack of connection with the first act and potentially unintended comedy affects the overall impact of the piece.
Whilst it is set in a time a world away from where we find ourselves today, the depth of the complex and intrinsically vital connections in family and married life become difficult to find.
Whilst The Son is criticised for becoming more and more like The Father, when the presentation is so light in touch, then it is harder to understand exactly why.
It rattles through at great pace and the filmic nature ensures no characters have the chance to breathe or fully develop.
It is clearly a cast at the very top of their game and Everett creates a hugely watchable central role and his decline is both mesmerising and convincing on every level.
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Reviewer: Petra Schofield