Death duties

Nine Night refers to a Jamaican custom that obliges bereaved families to party non-stop for more than a week following the death of a parent. When Gloria expires her relatives arrive from all parts of London and the Caribbean to indulge in a boozy blow-out. Gloria’s daughter Lorraine tussles with her businessman brother, Robert, who wants to stave off bankruptcy by flogging the family home immediately. Their half-sister, Trudy, arrives from Jamaica and collapses in hysterics over her abandonment by Gloria in infancy. Everyone lives in fear of Auntie Maggie, a pious matriarch, who uses a walking stick and whose religious devotion conceals the heart of an emotional despot. Cecilia Noble (Maggie) delivers a tour de force as the nit-picking hypochondriac. Her eccentric habits of expression make her interfering comments hilarious. When she hears about a nine-month-old baby being breast-fed, she says: ‘He mass be langin fra piece a chicken.’ Of her freedom pass she laments, ‘Only decent ting me gat from dis teeving gov’ment.’ And she worries that her dead sister’s bird’s-nest hairdo may ‘frighten Jee Suss!’

This simple and acutely observed family comedy is the first play by actress Natasha Gordon. Structurally it goes a bit wonky at the end. We don’t learn what happens to Robert’s failing business, to his pregnant wife, or to the disputed house sale. Instead we get a long and noisy exorcism sequence, which may be authentic but which lacks any tension because the departure of Gloria’s spirit from her home is never in doubt. Good things will flow from this flawed but often hilarious play. First, it deserves to tour. Second, Natasha Gordon will write more scripts. Finally, there should a spin-off show, ‘Auntie Maggie Holds Forth’, starring Cecilia Noble.