Description
“It’s like being at a retreat but with no healthy food and just one old woman.”
Without a paid job in a year and a half, Simon has been forced to sell his Hampstead home and is reduced to sleeping on a blow-up bed in the box room of Grandma’s house. Totally bereft of funds but ‘rich in soul’ Simon is now determined to prove himself as a serious actor, seeking a role in a west end play directed by his actor crush Ben Theodore.
But living with Grandma puts Simon right at the heart of the family tension; he has to deal with her denial about the death of Grandpa, and is caught in the crossfire of Tanya and Liz who have barely spoken since their late father’s funeral. The sisters seem even further apart – Tanya unconvincingly claims to be enjoying her single life, while Liz unsuccessfully hides the cracks in her marriage with Barry.
Tanya has failed to find a decent boyfriend since the departure of Clive, and faces a constant dilemma over her feelings for him. Clive, almost free of his alcoholism, returns in a bid to woo the woman he lost, and is hanging around under the guise of fixing up the house - most often enlisting the help of his reluctant best mate, ‘the Captain’.
But some things never change; Tanya is as over-bearing as ever as she fusses over Simon, argues with Liz and dodges Clive. The troubled and troublesome Adam continues to be amused by everything and everyone around him, and Liz struggles to keep a lid on her pent-up aggression. All the while Grandma is a nervous ball of energy, anxiously looking for ways to hold the family together.
Perhaps escaping from Grandma’s house is going to be harder than Simon thinks.