Like Alan Bennett but less funny: ‘night, Mother at Hampstead Theatre reviewed

’night, Mother is a two-hander that opens like a comedy sketch. ‘I’m going to kill myself, Mama,’ says Jessie. She’s cleaning a pistol and loading it with bullets. ‘I’ll shoot myself in a couple of hours.’ The pair live together in a lonely farmhouse, and Jessie wants to make sure her mother will be able to cope after her death. She tours the kitchen explaining where the fuses and the cleaning materials are kept. Mama, who doesn’t seem unduly alarmed, offers to phone her son and get him to thwart the suicide attempt. ‘I’ll just have to do it before he gets here,’ says Jessie.

This is an intensely dramatic set-up which ought to be either gripping or hilarious, or both. Somehow it lacks punch. The script, by Marsha Norman, has the kind of homely wit that we associate with Alan Bennett. Jessie suffers from epilepsy which has prevented her from pursuing a career.