Four Women and a Funeral by Jennifer Selway. Upstairs at the Gatehouse, 22 Highgate Hill, London N19 until 17 August 2025, 3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

Photo Credit: Ovation.

Four Women and a Funeral by Jennifer Selway. Upstairs at the Gatehouse.  22 Highgate Hill, London N19 until 17 August 2025,

3☆☆☆. Review: William Russell.

“Have a happy go lucky funeral.”

On as part of the Camden Festival this farce directed byRacky Plews is arguably a work in progress and continues the association between the family Plews with Selway. It works well, needs some tightening and while the cast work hard and effectively enough they need to project more strongly – the Gatehouse is a terrific venue for musicals but it is a susbtantial auditorium and performances can get lost. The ingrendients are interesting although some have surfaced in other farces but that is nothing unusual. The Restnore Funeral Home somewhere up state is snowed in and while the widow, played by Donna Coombe, has turned up the corpse is somewhere stuck in a snowdrift and the woman runninng the home, the Celebrant, plaued by Victoria Jeffrey is acting rather oddly. In due course two more mourners turn up and a video left by the corpse, played by Steve Jameson, tells them a thing or two and confusion runs riot. In act two the coffin has arrived. It has a little debt to Loot perhaps but Selway has done her thing and it passes the time amusingly enough and with work, which it is not going to get for such a short fringe run, she could have a play with a future on her hands.

Cast

Donna Combe – the Widow

Eliza McClelland – the Mitress

Leda Hodgson – the Guest

Victoria Jeffrey – the Celebrant

Steve Jameson – the Corpse

Creatives

Director – Racky Plews

Lighting Design – Alistair Warr