Review: "Relics" at Lyric Hammersmith Delivers Deadpan British Humor

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This family drama starring Sally Phillips misses the mark

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At first Relics seems straight out of a classic, deadpan British sitcom. Our characters – four siblings divvying up the possession of their recently deceased mother – are experiencing one of life’s most harrowing moments, but their conversation revolves around minutiae in council planning documents and parking difficulties. You can almost hear the laugh track.

But the siblings’ logistical woes are about to take a turn – it transpires that their grandfather, a decorated WWII veteran, was in possession of a lost Pissarro painting stolen from a Jewish family by the Nazis.

Dutiful eldest daughter Olivia ( Sally Phillips , cast pleasingly against type) is staunchly opposed to profiting off of their ill-gotten inheritance, while wayward brother Jonny ( JJ Feild ) has already made moves to get the painting valued by a shady auctioneer. Meanwhile, the two younger siblings, Rob ( Sam Swainsbury ), the people-pleasing father of an autistic son, and wisecracking primary school teacher Michelle (Charly Clive), remain torn.

This premise contains much fertile ground for writer Ben Ockrent to explore, in how grappling with family legacy allows the wounds of childhood to manifest in adulthood. There’s not a weak link in the cast, who wring psychological complexity out of their characters even as the script lags, and Michael Longhurst directs with elegance, highlighting the shifting faultlines and emerging factions within the quartet.

But Relics suffers from the straightforwardness of its moral dilemma. Olivia seems unambiguously in the right about what to do about the painting, has given up much of her life to care for her dying mother, and doesn’t seem to have done anything to merit her siblings’ resentment; meanwhile, none of the other three present a particularly compelling case for selling the painting beyond naked greed (the family is presented as broadly middle class). Bizarrely, it is midway through the second act before anyone mentions the option of donating the painting to a museum.

The comic elements therefore feel like a balm for a story that doesn’t work. The hijinks – this cast can eke physical comedy out of anything from an out-of-tune piano to a hospital bed – feel shallow, but vitally necessary when the ‘serious’ dialogue descends to the level of a debate in a secondary school philosophy class. Ockrent has a tendency to plaster over the weaknesses in the narrative with his more provocative comedy, including a facile and ill-advised joke comparing eating sausages to Nazism.

Early on, a monologue from Michelle about typical behaviours of eldest, middle and youngest siblings lays the foundations for a family drama with greater depth, with a tragic (or at least tragicomic) conclusion. But when it comes, the extremes of emotion feel out of place, partly because we don’t know enough about who these siblings were before their mother’s death. Instead, too much time has been spent on half-baked ethical pontificating about a dilemma that lacks the nuance the writer clearly wants it to have.

The basic storyline here could be compelling, if Olivia were just a little more unlikeable, or if the financial stakes for the other siblings were high from the outset – we find out far too late in the game some crucial details about quite how dire a situation Rob is in. As it stands, this version of Relics needs a substantial rewrite.

Relics plays at the Lyric Hammersmith until 18 July

Photo credits: Marc Brenner

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/westend/article/Review-RELICS-Lyric-Hammersmith-20260624)._