Dad is long dead and buried and at peace at last. None the less, the family still gather every year to celebrate Mum's wedding anniversary. As usual there will be fireworks, and this year they might prove more explosive than ever. For while Mum's eldest son, Henry, is busy pinching ladies' underwear from people's washing lines, her two other sons have pressing news to impart: Terry is about to emigrate to Canada with his wife Karen and five kids. And young Tom is going to marry his pregnant girlfriend, Shirley. At least Terry and Tom think that they are going to do these things, but Mum has other plans for her "chicks", and Mum always gets her way.
The worst advertisement for mother love since Medea, Denis Lawson's beautifully acted revival of Bill MacIlwraith's 40-year-old play has some wickedly funny moments but really boils down to the most over-extended mother-in-law from hell joke in theatrical history. When you think that the same era threw up Joe Orton's subversive takes on the dysfunctional family (and society), this domestic comedy looks rather tame and with its weak plotting, reliance on comic point-scoring dialogue and its doubtful gender politics falls into the non-radical tradition of the sitcom.
Lawson's production might perhaps be camper, but it is designed by Robin Donn with an acute eye for ghastly period detail and the performances are delicious, with Sheila Hancock queening it - and creaming it - as the monstrously manipulative and twisted matriarch. It is a great performance, but is more than matched for both comedy and subtlety by Rosie Cavaliero's desperate daughter-in-law, Karen, a woman who knows that, when faced with an opponent who fights as dirty as Mum, hitting below the belt is perfectly fair.
· Until October 2. Box office: 0151-709 4776.
