Third Finger, Left Hand, Trafalgar Studios 2 - theatre review

In the manner of many such family dramas, Dermot Canavan’s debut play offers a battered sofa, estranged siblings and limited time to effect a reconciliation. Grace (Amanda Daniels) and Niamh (Imogen Stubbs) haven’t spoken for some years, since Niamh left Grace to tend to their dying mother all by herself. But now they’re back together in Preston, looking through a box of old photos and reminiscing about a turbulent childhood that involved chips on a good night and thrashings on a bad.

It might seem perverse to call a piece that includes descriptions of domestic violence twee but there’s nothing very original about this account of growing up in the Seventies against a backdrop of the burgeoning Northern Soul scene. Daniels and Stubbs, who fights a losing battle with her own hair, certainly give energetic performances as they dance around to their favourite songs but there’s little real grit in what they’re saying. What we long to hear is more nuanced, about why they’re speaking again after so extended a silence.

Yet when we eventually do, it’s underwhelming. An unclear timeline of events doesn’t help, nor does the fact that certain key characters simply disappear from the narrative entirely. Feckless and troubled aren’t characteristics that Stubbs, a cheerfully wholehearted actress, was born to play. Daniels, though, quietly grows in stature throughout Ian Talbot’s production, as Grace ruefully realises that a lifetime of being the dutiful daughter hasn’t served for much.

Until April 27 (0844 871 7632, atgtickets.com/venues/trafalgar-studios)