Families

A riveting show crammed with the kind of risky gags rarely heard on stage these days

How To Survive Your Mother is a play based on a memoir by political dramatist Jonathan Maitland. He portrays himself in the show, and he muses on the wisdom of turning his manipulative, devious, sex-mad mother into a dramatic heroine. In the end, he’s swayed by ‘Edinburgh derangement syndrome’ as he calls it. ‘You’re diagnosed with terminal cancer and you think: “Great, there’s a show in this.”’ Maitland’s account of his rackety childhood is crammed with risky gags rarely heard on stage these days His mother, Bru, was a Jewish refugee from Haifa who posed as a Frenchwoman with Spanish roots to protect herself from the anti-Semitic bigotry. Her self-taught

The 10 best London boroughs for families

New analysis of house prices and schools across London shows that, out of London’s 32 boroughs, Sutton and Richmond upon Thames are best for families. When comparing size of property, the amount of green space and, most importantly, quality of schools, Sutton soared to the top of the rankings with an average house price of £508,679 for a semi-detached property – not bad considering the average house price in London is £485,830. For this price, families will be getting approximately 100 square metres of property, in an area with the lowest crime rate in all of London. When it comes to giving the kids a chance to let off steam,