My late father, probably like a lot of fathers, had an armoury of stock phrases which he’d churn out at key moments. If a driver cut him up, he’d shout: “Same to you, fella”, or when his knowledge was questioned: “People think I know bugger nothing, but I actually know bugger all”. And when someone reminisced about the good old days, he’d pipe up with: “Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be”. This line is not only present in Home, I’m Darling, but it could easily be the play’s subtitle, given that we’re introduced to Judy, an admitted feminist who, in agreement with her loving husband Johnny, has paradoxically chosen to live the life of a 1950s housewife.

This is Wade’s most recently published play (although she’s since written two episodes of the raunchy new TV series Rivals, based on Jilly Cooper’s 1980s novel) but not the first to be staged at the Barn, with the Studio hosting a memorable production of Breathing Corpses in 2017.

Home, I’m Darling was written as a hugely collaborative project with Tamara Harvey, her friend and the play’s subsequent director (to whom the play is dedicated) and the actor Katherine Parkinson, most famously from Channel 4’s cult sitcom The IT Crowd, for whom the play was written. It was very well received when it first played in 2018, transferring from Theatr Clwyd to the National Theatre where it picked up Best Comedy at the 2019 Olivier Awards. Unsurprisingly, given the play’s pedigree and its Welwyn Garden City setting, it’s no surprise that the Barn’s artistic director, Clive Weatherley, has been long keen to see it staged in its ‘hometown’.

The choice of Welwyn Garden City is surely no coincidence as it was designed by Ebenezer Howard to be ‘the perfect town’. But no town is perfect as today’s tumbleweed in the Howard Centre testifies. So when Johnny utters the line “Look at that, perfect” about his breakfast, we sense all is not as it seems in this gingham paradise. When the couple bemoan the lack of effort to keep the façade of the now-defunct Shredded Wheat factory, there is a sense we’ll soon be witnessing what lurks behind their chintzy lifestyle. Sure enough, we quickly learn of a potential infidelity and that Judy’s 1950s ideals are impacting on her relationship with Johnny who has at least one foot in the ‘real’ world. The sweet sickly smell from the historic cereal buildings that many of the audience will remember practically hangs over the couple as a reminder that the good old days weren’t universally good.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for Judy. A procession of people, including Johnny, friends Fran and Marcus and Johnny’s new boss, Alex, constantly challenge her goldfish bowl existence. What started out as “a project, it’s fun” for six months, has by the third year started to unravel at its pencil skirt seams. Judy faces the greatest onslaught from her overbearing mother, Sylvia, who regales Judy with the realities of how harsh the 1950s actually were, finishing with the acerbic lines: “They used to think nostalgia was an affliction… a neurological disease. Not a branding strategy for tea towels”.

When Judy declares to her mother that she’s a feminist because this lifestyle is her choice, her mother scoffs and we’re inclined to agree. For Judy’s chosen path has the unintentional consequence of making her submissive to Johnny who actually seems quite content to play the modern man given half the chance and who did all the cooking before this ‘arrangement’ was struck. Judy’s reluctance to believe the claims of a female employee against the obviously lecherous Marcus and her being on the point of providing sexual favours in return for much needed cash, suggests the feminist within has been smothered by both her exposure to her 1950s glossy advert-style existence and her desire to continue to reside there.

The play doesn’t descend from here into something much darker but instead has a rather saccharine ending. The cash-flow problems are quickly addressed and the couple resolve to find a more measured approach to life. The equilibrium in their relationship restored, they jokingly argue about who should lead in the play’s final dance.

A cast of six – seven if you include the intricate set – was split evenly between Barn stalwarts Jon Brown, who unselfishly relinquished his director’s reins to step in and play the leading man; Hazel Halliday as the indomitable Sylvia; Sarah Gennoe as best friend Fran; and newcomers Becky Done as 1950s addict Judy; Jane Lee Jones as the forthright Alex; and Mike Garbutt as the lothario, Marcus.

To go from the ensemble in Oliver! to the leading actor in Home, I’m Darling was quite the step up for Becky Done, but I admired her performance as she more than held her own among a very experienced cast, with Jon Brown giving an assured performance as her husband Johnny, though I didn’t always buy into the relationship between the pair. The whole cast worked very effectively as a team and the play stepped up a gear each time one of the four supporting actors brought in a breath of fresh air from the outside world into the stifling 1950s existence. Sarah Gennoe was perfectly cast as Fran, portraying the questioning but ultimately supportive friend. Jane Lee Jones and Mike Garbutt gave very strong and believable supporting performances, and I hope we’ll see more of them at the Barn. Hazel Halliday’s Sylvia had some of the best lines in the play, and her speech providing a brutal assessment of real-life in the 1950s received a just round of applause from the knowing Barn audience.

A word about the audience though: one person rustled their way through what must have been a family-size bag of crisps for almost the entire first act which was hugely distracting. Two mobile phones also went off despite the advance notice, and there was some unacceptable chattering still going on after the second act started. Come on Barn audience, you’re better than this.

The play was clearly very props (and food) heavy so kudos to the props team for their backstage graft. The set was intricate and lovingly detailed – the set designers and builders have had quite a time of it lately, especially with kitchens – and I particularly liked the painstakingly painted chequered floor. However, I wasn’t a huge fan of the stage being split into three areas. It isn’t really big enough to accommodate this arrangement without impinging on the actors’ movements. The bedroom was barely used but loomed large at the rear centre so I wondered if a neater solution to that could have been found – which might have helped remove the need for the actors to walk down an imaginary corridor every time they switched between the kitchen and lounge.

The adverts from the period were a nice touch between scenes, as was the intermittently humming faulty fridge. Lighting was simple but effective, particularly as we came out of the transitions. The dance scenes were performed effortlessly – the dance coaching clearly paid off. The costumes looked terrific, particularly the dresses worn by Becky, although this did mean that some changes between scenes were anything but quick, which led to some rather cumbersome, if orchestrated, transitions.

Following in the footsteps of a hugely collaborative and successful professional production was never going to be easy for any amateur theatre group. Throw in a change of director, who’s new to the Barn, eight weeks before curtain up, along with two or three late cast changes, and huge congratulations must go to Laura Ilinca and her entire collaborative team for not only getting this off the ground but for making it such a successful opener to the Barn’s 2024-25 season. 

Returning home after an enjoyable evening, I wondered about the play’s message. Is it about couples striving for utopia? Is it about the gender divide? Or the challenges of pursuing feminism? Or is it simply about the right to make non-conformist choices? Maybe it’s a combination of all of these but I settled on something less complicated, borrowing from what Katherine Parkinson said herself in an interview some years ago that Home, I’m Darling “is a romance first and foremost”.