In Nana Joan's tiny living room in a terraced house near London, the pressure is rising. It's the day before granddad Ron's funeral and everyone is nervy as they await the return of the youngest son, Jon, from the US, where he has become a successful financial trader. Things haven't worked out so well for Nana's eldest son, Jack, who has lost his job and has had to return to the family home to live with his teenage son, George, and wife, Jacqui. What future is there for them in the town he has always called home? His best mate, Tony, thinks that former foreman Jack can help make the future by standing in the council elections on a BNP ticket.
Pressure Drop is played out promenade-style on four stages, grandly described as an "installation", within a larger clinical space. The excellent cast and Billy Bragg's musical contributions lift the play with songs about a white, working-class family facing up to who they are in a changing world. Bragg offers a soundtrack to the lives of people struggling to define themselves. It's hard to dislike this amiable evening but there are few surprises, apart from Ron's devotion to reggae; and there is only one scene in the pub, where the whole thing bursts into messy, passionate life.
Mick Gordon's script covers all the bases but it often feels as though he is offering riffs on the nature of identity neatly tied up with a bow: Nana is losing her memory and sense of self; George is a teenager growing into a man and discovering what his inheritance might be; the others must put aside old notions of nationhood, friendship and family. With complexity sacrificed to tidiness, the show flickers but seldom flames.
