REVIEW: STORMS, MAYBE SNOW at Seven Dials Playhouse 16 – 20 September 2025

‘the characters’ reference points and idiosyncrasies feel specific and fully realised’ ★★ ½   

Most families are resplendent with resentments. The Morley family is no exception. There is the wife, Louisa, who refuses to engage emotionally with her cancer diagnosis; the husband, Jack, who can never fully atone for the sins of his past; and the daughter, variously Mariana, Mara, and Marnie, who is relieved that it is the mother she hates who got ill, and not the father she adores. Cue the petty jibes, tense meals, and blowout arguments.

Miranda Lapworth, the writer and director, has a knack for engaging dialogue. The characters’ reference points and idiosyncrasies feel specific and fully realised: they make fridge cake, fantasise about Mars mousse, play Film Relay, and debate the convertibility of “car mints” into “house mints” (no consensus is reached on this thorny matter). The actors relish the script. Jenny Lloyd Lyons is a particular standout, shifting Louisa from a clipped, aloof, Anna Maxwell Martin-esque figure into a woman exposed and vulnerable, drained of energy beneath the weight of her grief.

At times, though, the fun dialogue masks deeper flaws. The play never fully comes into focus. Too often it feels like a series of surprises are thrown at the characters just to see what will stick – and the answer is not very much. These characters are stubborn, and little dislodges them from the spiky, if ultimately comfortable, dynamics we see at the start of the play. That inertia may be true to life, but dramatically it proves repetitive. The same arguments replay with little evolution. Over a runtime of more than two hours this becomes wearing, particularly in the second half.

I also struggled to fully understand the relationship between Louisa and her daughter, Mariana – brilliantly played by Steph Sarratt. Theirs is a terse dynamic: Mariana is convinced of her mother’s selfishness, and Louisa is fed up with her daughter’s incessant campaign of vilification. Yet without more detail on what forged this deep-seated resentment, Mariana’s actions drift towards the unforgivable. At every turn she picks a fight – both after her mother’s diagnosis and after Jack’s sudden death. Her ceaseless vitriol starts to feel uncalled for, and it becomes hard to stay with the character. We are assured Mariana has fair cause to be angry, but without specificity her rage lacks grounding. Sarratt does her utmost to humanise the character, but she becomes increasingly unsympathetic in the second half.

Lapworth’s play has wit and energy. The performers rise to the challenge of its dialogue and have fun with the detailed set. But with unfocused plotting and relationships left underexplored, it never quite lands the dramatic punch these characters could achieve.

Storms, Maybe Snow by Miranda Lapworth / Seven Dials Playhouse / 16 – 20 September 2025

https://www.sevendialsplayhouse.co.uk/shows/storms-maybe-snow