This is my family

21 Oct This is my family

I haven’t been to the theatre much at all in the past year, so a work trip out to see a new comedy musical making its main theatre debut was an appealing opportunity. I went into the theatre with no particular expectations as I knew nothing about it aside from its title and genre. However it was not long after the music began that I became charmed by its characters and story concept.

Nicky is a thirteen year old schoolgirl from a perfectly average family who seeks to win a ‘perfect family’ competition. The story starts with her entry to the competition, where she introduces and outlines each member of her family through the musical’s main tune, unsurprisingly named ‘This is my family’. It would take a person with very little sense of humour to not laugh when Nicky’s parents re-enact their ‘romantic’ meeting at the age of sixteen, or later on when Nicky’s father sings about finding the perfect candle to go in the family’s downstairs toilet. The appeal of the characters stems from their complete ‘normalness’, the script conveys the dry humour of everyday life through characters full of charisma who feel utterly real. When Nicky wins the competition and is given the prize of choosing a family holiday destination for herself, her parents and her highly emotionally strung and melodramatic adolescent brother, you feel her sense of outrage that her family members are too wrapped up in their own lives to share her excitement. It is at this point in the story that the audience is invited into sharing the complexities and depth of each of the characters. Dad is going through a midlife crisis, Mum is feeling taken for granted and neglected, Matt (the aforementioned older brother) is lost in a cloud of his intense first-love relationship, and her aunt is enjoying the company of a newly acquired toy boy following the breakdown of her marriage. However, when a family crisis threatens to truly break the already cracking foundations of the family structure, Nicky steps in to try and bring them all back together.

The majority of the story is told through songs, for which the lyrics are written with a sense of honesty and true understanding of everyday life and all of its delightful dramas. All of the characters had their opportunity to share their thoughts through song, and many of the songs’ lines and messages are with me now days later. The only thing I would have asked for perhaps was a more regular change in the tune – the melody for the main song was frequently re-used for other songs to the point of slight over-use. However we laughed frequently at the wit and dryness of the script, but at times the empathy created in each of the characters leads to twinges of sadness as well. The overall effect of the story and the performance is very satisfying, and the high quality of the actors and their singing really does make the characters feel real. I would highly recommend this performance to any appreciator of comedy, but also as a touching story which any member of a slightly dysfunctional family can enjoy.