Till the Stars Come Down review: A wedding goes awry in a crowd-pleasing comedy with series finale energy

Beth Steel’s play about a multigenerational family has a cheeky spirit but a tragic undercurrent, as its characters grapple with the simmering tensions of life in a post-Brexit community

‘Till the Stars Come Down’ at the National Theatre (Manuel Harlan)

A pair of elasticated Spanx pings into a near-hysterical audience in the first act of Beth Steel’s zingy comedy, set at a small town Northern wedding where all decorum breaks down. It’s typical of the cheeky spirit of this crowd-pleasing play – but peel off the layers and there’s tragedy underneath. Steel also writes for TV, and accordingly Till the Stars Come Down has the energy of a big season finale, where a multigenerational cast clash, cry, and unearth secrets against the backdrop of an emotional family get-together. Sinead Matthews lends an emotive croak to the role of Sylvia, the nervy bride who wakes up nauseous, sure that her big day won’t go to plan.

She’s not wrong. Her family can’t hide their mixed feelings about her Polish husband-to-be Marek (Marc Wootton). Her dad John (Derek Riddell) forgets his name in his after-dinner speech, protesting that he hardly knows him, while her sister Hazel (Lucy Black) makes snide comments about migrants taking the best jobs in their opportunity-starved former mining town. Their other sister, played by Lisa McGrillis, keeps quiet, while Aunty Carol is eagerly trying to trample her way into the role of Sylvia’s deceased mother. Lorraine Ashbourne is a knockout in this gem of a comic role, prancing across the dancefloor and reminiscing cryptically about the time she wiped her bum with candyfloss ("it was pink", she says in justification). It’s all building to something, that much is obvious.

But when the obligatory wedding punch-up arrives, the blows land more heavily than you’d expect. This play niggles at the tensions in a post-Brexit community where there’s not much to go round, but pride and apathy end up being almost as corrosive as decades of underfunding. As Marek, Wootton is broad and bumptious – perhaps having too much fun with the comic side of this penniless Megabus arrival-turned-successful local builder for the sadder realities of living with xenophobia to land. But Philip Whitchurch’s more understated turn as Uncle Pete supplies more pathos, showcasing the flexibility of Steel’s writing – difficult, even bigoted views get aired here but there’s empathy and the capacity for change, too.

The cast of ‘Till the Stars Come Down’ (Manuel Harlan)

Bijan Sheibani’s pacy, stylish production ramps up this story’s epic side by turning the stage into a mini solar system. In Samal Blak’s ingenious design, a giant disco ball becomes its sun, a circle of grassy green revolving slowly underneath as the story’s heavenly bodies orbit each other in increasingly bedraggled formal wear. The closing collision comes too abruptly here, with an ending that feels overly swift and final – especially for a play that’s spent so much time exploring how complicated people and views can coexist. But Steel’s play still feels like an achievement, deftly handling a huge line-up of Northern working-class characters and making them shine with a sharp, flawed brightness.

National Theatre, until 16 March