David Preston, an unassuming man, returns home after an uneventful day at the office, travelling on his normal train from Cannon Street. He is greeted by his distressed wife wanting to know where he has been for the past 24 hours. To his horror, he finds that it is one day later than he thought, and he has no recollection of how he has spent the intervening day. That is the first mystery of this intriguing sounding play by R C Sherriff. The second mystery is that in the time when he had disappeared, a theft and murder have occurred. Was he responsible?
The play was written and is set in 1950. Although best known for his well-known and much performed Journey’s End, Sherriff wrote a number of other plays and was a successful screenwriter. Home at Seven has rarely been performed, although in1952 it was made into a film directed by and starring Ralph Richardson. This revival sets the play in its original 1950s, the Tabard’s small but well-proportioned playing area showing the living room of David Preston’s Bromley house with pleasing attention to period detail. One nice touch was that the telephone used in the production was Sherriff’s actual telephone lent by the R C Sherriff Trust, set up on his death, and which to this day does useful work promoting the arts. Considerable thought had also in given to the detail of the period costumes.
The play itself, though, is as dated as its setting. As the bewildered David Preston, Sam Ellis gave a convincing performance. I also liked the performance of Andrew Williams as the lively Dr Sparling, keen to help Preston while also enjoying the thrill of being involved in the unravelling mystery. The other actors, however, struggled to bring realism to the caricatures in the script.
The play poses a particular problem for the direction. It is fairly static, relying on the words for the interest and intrigue, and the living room set gave little option for convincing movement. Unfortunately, the director, Claire Evans, fell into the trap of having the cast move excessively around the set without any motivation.
The first half of the play is very engaging as the plot evolves, but the second half was much less satisfactory. An explanation was eventually provided for Preston’s lapse of memory, which was just about believable, but the resolution of the theft and the murder was very weak, and the play ended as a damp squib.
While one can only applaud the attempt to bring this little-performed play back to life, it ended up being an unsatisfactory evening of drama.
Home at Seven is playing at the Theatre at the Tabard until 20th September, tickets are available at https://tabard.org.uk/
Reviewer: Paul Ackroyd
Reviewed: 4th September 2025
North West End UK Rating: