Jumpy (at the Duke of York's Theatre)

Select a Date

Date	Time	Venue	Notes	Prices	Booking Link
Available Performances
Dates in August
Thu 16 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available, Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 17 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 18 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 20 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available, Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 21 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available, Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 22 Aug 2012	2:30pm	Concessions Available, Mid-Week Matinee, Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 22 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available, Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 23 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available, Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 24 Aug 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 25 Aug 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees, Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 25 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 27 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available, Preview Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 28 Aug 2012	7:00pm	Press Night	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	Press Night
Wed 29 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 30 Aug 2012	2:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre
Thu 30 Aug 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 31 Aug 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Dates in September
Sat 1 Sep 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 1 Sep 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 3 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 4 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 5 Sep 2012	2:30pm	Concessions Available, Mid-Week Matinee	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 5 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 6 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 7 Sep 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 8 Sep 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 8 Sep 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 10 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 11 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 12 Sep 2012	2:30pm	Mid-Week Matinee	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 12 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 13 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 14 Sep 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 15 Sep 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 15 Sep 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 17 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 18 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 19 Sep 2012	2:30pm	Concessions Available, Mid-Week Matinee	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 19 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 20 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 21 Sep 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 22 Sep 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 22 Sep 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 24 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 25 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 26 Sep 2012	2:30pm	Concessions Available, Mid-Week Matinee	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 26 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 27 Sep 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 28 Sep 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 29 Sep 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 29 Sep 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Dates in October
Mon 1 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 2 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 3 Oct 2012	2:30pm	Concessions Available, Mid-Week Matinee	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 3 Oct 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 4 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 5 Oct 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 6 Oct 2012	2:30pm	Audio Described Performance, Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 6 Oct 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 8 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 9 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 10 Oct 2012	2:30pm	Concessions Available, Mid-Week Matinee	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 10 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 11 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 12 Oct 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 13 Oct 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 13 Oct 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 15 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 16 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available, Captioned Performance	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 17 Oct 2012	2:30pm	Concessions Available, Mid-Week Matinee	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 17 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 18 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 19 Oct 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £7
Sat 20 Oct 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 20 Oct 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 22 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 23 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 24 Oct 2012	2:30pm	Concessions Available, Mid-Week Matinee	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 24 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Thu 25 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 26 Oct 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 27 Oct 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 27 Oct 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Mon 29 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Tue 30 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 31 Oct 2012	2:30pm	Concessions Available, Mid-Week Matinee	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Wed 31 Oct 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Dates in November
Thu 1 Nov 2012	7:30pm	Concessions Available	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Fri 2 Nov 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 3 Nov 2012	2:30pm	Saturday Matinees	Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sat 3 Nov 2012	7:30pm		Duke of York's Theatre, St. Martin's Lane WC2N 4BG	£52.50, £45.00, £35.00, £25.00, £15.00, £75.00
Sold out Performances

Reviews

5 stars The Telegraph by Dominic Cavendish, 29 August 2012

Were it not for the fact that it has to make way for another Royal Court transfer in November – Nick Payne’s Constellations – I can’t see any reason why April De Angelis’s Jumpy shouldn’t run and run at the Duke of York’s. It’s the funniest new play the West End has seen in ages. It’s not only funny, it’s painfully acute; and its wit is of a piece with its insight. Played out via a series of short, sharp scenes in a cool white domestic interior, its action punctuated with bursts of pop, it swings from one hard emotional truth to another, often within the space of a single line.

Its anguished north London heroine, Hilary, has made it to 50 with not nearly enough to show for it: her ever-texting teenage daughter is in a state of perpetual, highly sexed rebellion, her marriage has sagged into severe disrepair and her worthy job on a local “reading support” unit is falling prey to the cuts.

The evening concisely asks what happened to feminism – Hilary, once a Greenham Common protester, can’t even find solidarity with her sex-starved best-friend Frances, who now scoffs at the bra-burners of yesteryear (“God we were pious”) and thinks burlesque is the way forward.

But De Angelis doesn’t confine her concerns. Her play speaks to anyone who has mothered or been mothered; anyone who has had to grow up or grow old; anyone struggling to cope with the social media revolution; and indeed anyone reaching for another glass of white wine after work to get them through it all.

Nina Raine’s superb production answers the writing’s slightly tipsy-seeming volatility with a clutch of performances that allow room for exaggerated fun without losing real-world recognisability.

The male actors seem comfortably content to play second-fiddle – their characters either counterpoints in hormonal and marital decline or walk-on lusty eye-candy. It’s the women who rule the dramatic roost. Tamsin Greig joins the forefront of our finest stage actresses, finding understated hilarity and pathos in the spectacle of a wife and mum on the verge of a breakdown. At times, her Hilary is an attractively bemused bystander to everything in the world, even herself; at others, her teary sense of desolation is almost unbearable to behold.

Bel Powley’s Tilly, cringing with adolescent disapproval, has the tough task of sparring with Greig’s fretful Hilary to a stereotypical degree, but manages to make her more than a bundle of scowls in a miniskirt. Her filial put-downs are, it’s been reported, partly the fruit of De Angelis’s own first-hand observation. Whether the playwright has ever witnessed anything akin to what she has the wonderful Doon Mackichan do as the brazen Frances – a shamelessly suggestive burlesque tryout that meets with stunned silence on a Norfolk beach – who knows?

But that jaw-dropping instance of past-caring attention-seeking is just one of countless reasons why missing this show feels tantamount to ducking the pressing question of our image-obsessed age: what value life after youth has jumped ship?

4 stars The Evening Standard by Henry Hitchings, 29 August 2012

Jumpy is a sharp-witted play about midlife crisis and parental angst, packed with zest by its creator April De Angelis. In the lead role, Tamsin Greig is brilliant, her performance full of eloquent detail.

Greig plays Hilary, once a militant idealist who protested at Greenham Common. Now she is married and has settled into anxious middle age. Her routines feel hollow: her work is hard and appears not to be appreciated, her marriage to gruff Mark has slid from romance into habit, and her racy friend Frances provides guidance that is less than magical.

But Hilary’s chief source of concern is her daughter Tilly, a tarty teen who mixes stroppiness with contempt. To Tilly, whose values have come from glamour models rather than the pioneers of feminism, Hilary is embarrassing — she even wears really uncool jeans — and the spectacle of her lamenting her lost youth is tedious.

Meanwhile, Hilary is fascinated and appalled by Tilly, not least by the discovery that she is getting intimate with a boy called Josh whose main selling point seems to be that his hair covers a large part of his face. As Tilly tries to assert herself, Hilary senses that her own existence is unravelling. She glugs wine to numb the pain.

Greig excels at nervy vulnerability, but also at coruscating wit. She captures Hilary’s exhaustion and frustration perfectly and is at her best when the role calls for her to squeeze comedy from something banal.

She’s well supported in Nina Raine’s confident production, in particular by Bel Powley as the permanently pouting Tilly. As the ludicrous Frances, Doon Mackichan has one astonishing sequence involving a dance routine that she seems to think will revive both her acting career and her love life. Richard Lintern is spot-on as Josh’s thespy dad, who unexpectedly flirts with Hilary, and Ewan Stewart brings a hangdog weariness to the stolid Mark.

The writing is perceptive, even if sometimes it feels as though it has traded nuance for comic breadth. There are laugh out loud moments, yet also a few awkward ones (especially when Tilly lays her hands on a gun).

Politically the play could pack more of a punch, but Jumpy is worth seeing for Greig alone.

The Guardian by Lyn Gardner, 29 August 2012

The male mid-life crisis is a stage staple, yet the word menopause is barely whispered in the theatre – making April de Angelis’s smart comedy a rare exception. At the heart of this tragedy played as farce is Hilary (Tamsin Greig), a woman struggling with a number of things – turning 50, a stale marriage to Mark (Ewan Stewart), the loss of her job due to government cuts, and, not least, her daughter Tilly (Bel Powley), a 15-year-old of such sexual provocativeness and sneering contempt that she’s a walking advertisement for the old adage that teenagers are God’s punishment for having sex.

From the moment that Greig, arms weighed down by carrier bags, staggers into her kitchen (in Lizzie Clachan’s design, a place of muted greys, as if all the colour had been bleached out of it), and gropes for the wine before even removing her coat, it is clear this is a woman in retreat. So where did it all go wrong?

De Angelis’s play comes draped in cheeky comedy, but at its heart is about loss: loss of principles (Hilary was once at Greenham Common), loss of self in the role of motherhood, loss of love, loss of control over a child. Most of all – though the subject is only glancingly explored, as if De Angelis is afraid the f-word might frighten the audience – it is about losing ground gained by the feminists of the 1980s.

Just as Hilary finds it difficult to face the hard reality of a life gone astray, so De Angelis touches something truthful about the lives of a generation of women who thought they would lead entirely different lives from their mothers – but never fully confronts the issue. The conflicted nature of the piece is summed up in Doon Mackichan’s brilliant, almost burlesque turn as Hilary’s sexually desperate friend Frances. It’s a setpiece that brings the house down, but not one that feels as if it is grounded in reality.

The whole thing is glued together by a remarkable performance from Greig, who adroitly plays the role for laughs, but also movingly suggests a woman in mourning for her lost self…how often do you get a West End play that’s intelligent, funny and puts contemporary mid-life women centre stage?

4 stars The Times by Libby Purves, 30 August 2012

They move in packs!” says one parent, baffled by 21st-century urban teenagers. “Bonding … liberal shit, why don’t we just beat them senseless?” That’s one approach. Another is attempted by Tamsin Greig as Hilary, a former Greenham campaigner beaten down by real life. She tries, in cringingly funny scenes, to share her feminist ideas with her teetering-heeled, sooty-eyed, scornful daughter Tilly. “You’ll see it differently at my age.” “I”ll be dead then!”

For Hilary is 50, as is her best friend Frances (Doon Mackichan), who fends off age by “empowering” herself with leather basques. Hilary’s husband Mark prefers a quiet life and Tilly’s boyfriend’s parents — sleek actor Roland and chilly Bea — are equally uneasy with the role of older generation. The couples meet for embarrassing summit meetings about the sex lives of their young.

Last year April De Angelis’s play adorned the Royal Court’s flurry of studies of middle-class dilemmas — ageing, redundancy, disillusion, nostalgia, parenthood. I loved it then, appreciating its deft, uncomplaining take on female dreads, its fond mockery of motheaten idealism and its understatedly beautiful affirmation that, after the tantrums, terrors and battles, what remains is family love. I also liked the sharp, brave way it asks whether middle-aged parents confuse moral and safety concerns about young love with something closer to envy.

Seeing it up West with only one minor change in its brilliant cast (Amanda Root takes over as Bea) I admire Nina Raine’s production even more. A hundred details delight, not least Lizzie Clachan’s eloquent costumes. Hilary at one point wears a cardigan that has caused me to throw out two of mine. Frances sports fabulously desperate boho sexpot gear, Mark (Ewan Stewart) insouciantly ill-fitting beachwear on a Norfolk weekend; and there’s inspired teenage slutwear on Tilly and her pregnant friend Lyndsey. Both girls are beyond praise: Seline Hizli as Lyndsey enchantingly dumb and cheerful in her pregnancy; Bel Powley as Tilly laying childish scowls over subtly indicated vulnerability just as she lays “Jafaikan” street-talk over middle-class vowels.

It’s all perfectly done and written, with a teasing triple climax and layers of emotional truth. Once more I do not reveal what Mackichan does in a certain five-minute solo spot at the end of Act 1, but this time I had more chance to watch the rest of the characters reacting to it. Masterfully.

4 stars The Independent by Paul Taylor, 31 August 2012

A West End transfer was widely predicted for April DeAngelis’s wincingly witty play when it opened at the Royal Court last October. And now here it duly and deservedly is – slotted between Posh and the forthcoming Constellations in a season of Sloane Square hits at the Duke of York’s Theatre. Jumpy has no difficulty acclimatising itself to its new home. One of the pleasures of the piece is the clever way it is semi-disguised as an upbeat middle-class sitcom so that it can steer you, all the more pointedly, into the more elusive and painful parts that the genre does not normally reach. Nina Raine’s pitch-perfect production – snappy, ebullient, yet subtly shaded and ending on an unforced, heart-snagging not of elegiac wistfulness – beautifully communicates this.

The subject matter – menopausal mother at loggerheads with her precocious then pregnant 15-year-old daughter – is potentially grim. But there’s a generous-spirited comic resilience to DeAngelis treatment of it. All but two of the original cast reappear here, with Tamsin Greig once again deeply funny and affecting as Hilary, who once protested at Greenham Common and now, facing 50, unemployment, and a stale marriage, finds herself aghast at the gulf between her Seventies-vintage feminist values and the tarty, airheaded behaviour of her only child, Bel Powley’s alarmingly hyper-sexualised and dismissive Tilly.

But then it’s not as if she is getting much support from women of her own age. Of the two new cast members, Amanda Root brings a formidable glinting malignancy to the role of the other mother, self-interestedly insisting that in cases of teenage pregnancy, it’s the boys who pay the higher price. The other replacement is Ben Lloyd-Hughes; he’s strikingly handsome, if not quite as sensitive as his predecessor, in the role of the 20-year-old hunk Cam, a friend of Tilly who rather implausibly has a fleeting dalliance with Hilary.

It’s true that the male roles aren’t as well written and that the proceedings become a bit over-plotted, and far-fetched. But Greig’s superb Hilary – who drifts into a shockingly vulnerable, bone-weary grief and depression – keeps things grounded in reality. And the piece is deliciously spot-on in its wily observations of a world obsessed with looks and sex in which Hilary’s man-hungry actress friend Frances (hilarious Doon Mackichan) can delude herself that her cringe-making new line in burlesque routines is post-feminist, ironic and empowering.

4 stars The Mail on Sunday by Georgina Brown, 10 September 2012

Tamsin Greig’s Hilary has hit 50 and she’s feeling battered. She arrives home, weighed down by her groceries in hessian bags-for-life, but more so by misery and weariness. She pours herself a glass of wine and empties it before removing her coat.

April De Angelis’s piercingly funny, middle-class family drama is about growing old and growing up. First seen last year at the Royal Court, Jumpy now has a hugely deserved encore at the Duke of York’s.

Not only does it dare to mention the word menopause (Hilary’s mutinous daughter, Tilly, calls it the ‘mentalpause’) but brings the jagged relationship between a menopausal mother and her teenage daughter into sharp focus.

Beleaguered, besieged Hilary is barely off-stage throughout the play and Greig’s performance couldn’t be better, articulating as much in her non-verbal gestures – the slump of her shoulders, the clutching at her face, the spilling tears – as in her words.

Hilary’s worthy-sounding job, helping troubled adolescents to read, is threatened by cuts; her marriage to Mark is just about held together by habit (he runs a blinds company and business is sagging, which says it all). He refuses to stand up to grunting, glowering, door-slamming 15-year-old Tilly, forcing Hilary to be the one to nag about homework and curfew times.

In a vain attempt to contain a situation that she lost control of long ago, Hilary insists that Tilly’s boyfriend stays at their house. Alas, it doesn’t prevent Tilly getting pregnant.

Tilly, horribly well played by a pouting, baby-faced Bel Powley, in towering heels and a micro-mini dress, puts her fingers in her ears when her mum says the words ‘contraception’ or ‘revision’ and rarely takes her eyes off her mobile phone. She hasn’t a clue what Greenham Common or feminism mean to her mother and couldn’t care less. As her mother says, the only thing applied with any diligence by Tilly is eyeliner.

Patient, understanding Hilary finally flips: ‘Can’t you keep your ****ing knickers on? You disgust me.’

The play is far from perfect. Some of the scenes of broader comedy feel like set pieces: in particular, Hilary’s friend Frances’s effort to kick-start her love-life and her career as a burlesque dancer, for which Doon Mackichan, in fishnets and a leather corset, does a demonstration on the deck of Hilary’s holiday house in Norfolk. It’s met by the mute, stunned embarrassment of Hilary, Mark, Tilly and boyfriend Josh – and the unrestrained hilarity of the audience.

While the female characters are superbly observed and richly drawn, the men are outlines, though it’s impossible not to enjoy the boyfriend’s randy, philandering flake of a dad, an actor who fancies himself rotten and imagines everyone else does too. Nina Raine’s punchy production gets away with it because you can’t take your eyes off Greig, who doesn’t merely strike a hundred nerves, but makes your heart bleed.

Reviews from the Original Production: 4 stars The Mail On Sunday, By Georgina Brown, 30th October 2011

Mike Leigh’s devastating new play, Grief, at the National Theatre, is about a mother and her 15-year-old daughter failing to bridge the generation gap during the Fifties. Victoria wants a duffel coat and uses that awful new word ‘OK’. Her mother wants her baby back.

At the Royal Court, April de Angelis’s screamingly funny and moving middle-class family drama, Jumpy, brings the situation right up to date. Tilly, also 15, dresses like a hooker and is sleeping with her boyfriend. Her mother wants another glass of anaesthetising wine.

Both plays end with a gunshot, but Jumpy, mercifully, is a comedy, with de Angelis evidently more optimistic than Leigh that parents and offspring can get through the trial of the teenage years and emerge more or less intact.

Needless to say, Hilary, in an outstanding performance by Tamsin Greig, spends much of the play weeping. She is feeling battered by being 50, by being made redundant, by her daughter who disgusts her, by a stale marriage and by the failure of her husband to stand up to their daughter.

Her best friend Frances thinks that becoming a burlesque dancer is a way to rage against the dying of the light and, indeed, to boost her sex appeal. Doon Mackichan, dressed to thrill in a leather corset, stamping her high-heeled hoof and waggling the ponytail attached to her bottom, couldn’t be more hilariously embarrassing.

While the title of the play refers to Tilly’s beloved cuddly toy monkey, who shares her bed with her and the boyfriend, it also describes Hilary’s rattled state of mind. She wants to accept her daughter’s sexualisation and precocious ways – two of the many volcanic changes in society since she was a frumpy feminist protesting at Greenham Common – but it’s a terrible struggle.

In a feeble attempt to keep tabs on a situation that she lost control of long ago, she insists that the boyfriend stays at their house, thereby subjecting herself and her husband to some noisy nights.

When Tilly becomes pregnant, she says her daughter must decide what to do, but of course, in her wretched heart of hearts she longs to lay down the law.

Greig is quite brilliant at expressing the gap between what she says and how she feels. Nina Raine’s punchy production would be even more bruising if the men – Tilly’s father (in the blinds business, which says everything) and the boyfriend’s dad (a philandering flake of an actor) – were as well drawn.

But Bel Powley’s Tilly exudes toxic teenage egotism from every pore, her nose in her texts as she strops around telling her mother how wrinkly her neck is.

I heard several people in the audience claiming that De Angelis must have had an ear to their door. Certainly, she hits a thousand nerves and makes the audience giggle, gasp and groan in painful recognition. It must transfer to the West End. 4 stars Financial Times, By Sarah Hemming, 21st October 2011

There’s a large bed lurking behind a screen on the set for April De Angelis’s Jumpy at the Royal Court. It seems symbolic. Sex looms large in this entertaining and perceptive comedy about modern living. Too much, too little, too soon, too late – what happens, or doesn’t happen, in the bedroom frazzles the nerves of all the characters, but particularly those of Hilary. As a 50-year-old woman, she is struggling to keep several shows on the road: her job, her marriage, her body and her relationship with her 15-year-old daughter.

Tamsin Greig is outstanding in this wittily and sympathetically drawn part. On her first entrance, pale and harassed, she makes straight for the wine without removing her coat. Instantly, she has your affection and she holds it throughout, as her character tries to hang on to her liberal and feminist principles, while navigating the unfamiliar waters of ageing, insecurity and a child’s precarious transition to adulthood. Her marriage to Mark (Ewan Stewart) has settled into something comfortable but unexciting, like an old winter coat, while her daughter, Tilly (Bel Powley), has transformed into a scowling, scantily dressed stranger, who is discovering the joys of sex, loudly, with similarly under-aged Josh.

Hilary, who protested at Greenham Common in her own youth, is bewildered and aghast at the gap between her values and those of her daughter. What should she do? De Angelis explores this question in a series of droll, wonderfully observed scenes, as Hilary takes on Josh’s venomous mother (Sarah Woodward) and egocentric father (Richard Lintern) and confides in her long-time girlfriend Frances (Doon Mackichan, raunchily funny). These encounters are sharply delivered in Nina Raine’s production, sending ripples of agonised recognition round the auditorium. “I never let myself go,” declares Frances. “Neither have I,” mumbles Hilary, through a mouthful of crisps. The temperature gradually changes, however, as relationships begin to buckle and the problems become more acute.

The second half drops off a bit: there are rather too many plot-twists, some of them bizarre and unlikely. And some of the characterisation is extreme. But still this is a compassionate, very funny and finally moving play about modern living. Behind the laughs, De Angelis quietly raises some serious questions about how we parent, grow up and grow old, and contributes to the ongoing exploration at this theatre of the difficulty of holding on to principles in a changing world. 4 stars Metro, By Claire Allfree, 21st October 2011

What happened to the Greenham Common Women? In the case of Tamsin Greig’s Hilary, they got saddled with a marriage, that’s run out of steam, a promiscuous teenage daughter who doesn’t even know what Greenham Common was and a job market that thinks you’re over the hill at 50.

April de Angelis’s acidically funny new play is a sideways glance at the legacy of 1970s feminism masquerading as a sitcom-style comedy about a midlife crisis, and given a sparkling production from Nina Raine.

Greig proves she can do way more than funny as the touchingly beleaguered Hilary, trying to manage Bel Powley’s superbly brattish Tilly (oversexed and underage), while also wondering how to kick-start a marriage in which sex has given way to reading Dickens aloud in bed.

She has great on-stage chemistry, too, with Doon Mackichan, Hilary’s actress best friend Frances who, in the name of ‘sexual empowerment’, has developed a totally terrifying burlesque act in a desperate attempt to revive her career.

Modern feminism is full of mixed messages, is Angelis’s point – and no more so than for today’s teenage girls. And if this play is more about the diagnosis than the solution, it’s so sharp on the minefield of modern parenting (in which liberal values come up alarmingly short) and so rich in the firecracker one liners, that you end up forgiving it. 4 stars The Daily Telegraph, By Charles Spenser, 20th October 2011

The Royal Court – on a roll with Jerusalem now enjoying a second run in the West End – has another hit on its hands with April De Angelis’s new play, Jumpy.

It’s funny, deliciously rude and at times piercingly moving, and stars that superb comic actress Tamsin Greig, giving a performance to match her award-winning Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing for the RSC a few years ago.

This time, however, the play is bang up to date and will make any parent with a teenager in the family laugh with recognition, wince with horror and, if you are as soft as I am, cry a little too.

Greig plays Hilary who once protested at Greenham Common but is now a married, 50-year- old middle class London mum with a shop-owner husband ( Ewan Stewart) and a stroppy 15-year-old daughter who dresses like a prostitute and is discovered to be sleeping with her boyfriend (also 15). Needless to say the wayward young Tilly treats her anxious Mum with cruel contempt.

On one level this is a classic mid-life crisis play. Hilary experiences panic attacks on the Tube, worries that she might lose her job with a literacy support group and when she gets back from the shops is desperate for a glass of wine or three.

It’s also a portrait of a marriage where passion, if not affection, has long since run dry, and it reaches breaking point as the couple agonise over their daughter, whose stroppiness and promiscuity become a major cause for concern.

There are scenes here which will strike a chord of recognition with any parents who have tried to talk seriously to their teenage children only to find that the blighters are far more interested in perusing their text messages, and to any couple for whom the idea of sex after a long day at work is simply too exhausting to contemplate.

But there are also wonderful scenes of comedy in which Hilary runs up against the gorgon mother of the youth who has deflowered her daughter (a splendidly acidic turn from Sarah Woodward) only to discover that the gorgon’s husband, a self-regarding actor, is hitting on her.

There were many moments when Jumpy made me snort with laughter, not least when Hilary’s best friend (Doon Mackichan), a man hungry-actress desperate to defy the ravages of time, shows off the excruciatingly embarrassing burlesque routine that she fondly hopes will revive her flagging career.

But though the laughs keep coming the play movingly captures the inequality of love between parents and their children, and there is no mistaking the emotional truth of the writing.

Greig is superb, brilliantly combining scenes of exasperated comedy with moments of exhausted despair, and the scenes with her daughter, played with a spot–on mixture of insolence and vulnerability by Bel Powley are beautifully true and touching.

Nina Raine’s production deftly blends the play’s comedy and deeper feeling while De Angelis’s keeps you guessing how it will all turn out until the very end. 4 stars The Times, By Libby Purves, 20th October 2011

Writers of contemporary stage comedies have a problem: we are used to good TV sitcoms. So when you present two women bemoaning 50th birthdays, one single and desperate, one with a teenager and dull husband, then add a handsome divorcing neighbour — well, you see the trap. We mustn’t feel as if we might as well stay home with a DVD. It has to be chokingly funny, or embrace surreal flashbacks, or deepen and darken into greater significance. Not easy.

So a bouquet to playwright April De Angelis, and to Nina Raine’s deft direction. In Jumpy, they tick all three boxes, and express a female predicament without whining. Tamsin Greig is perfect as the mother, Hilary, misty-eyed about Greenham, losing her job in a literacy project and married to Mark, a furnishings salesman who was once a fiery art student (ah, life’s attrition!). Their daughter parties a lot and doesn’t revise.

The 15-year-old Tilly is played with magnificent stalking defiance by Bel Powley in maximum eyeliner and minimum clothes. She has a placid pregnant pal, wonderfully realised by Seline Hizli, whose boy isn’t around “cos he’s dead, innhe?”. Stabbed. Tilly has embarked on sex; Hilary and Mark are terribly modern and discuss the “issues” with the boy’s parents, a chill furious she-banker and a shallow charming actor (Richard Lintern gleefully plays to everyone’s idea of how actors behave). In a fabulous moment Tilly confronts her mother with rage at this interference, drawing the best laugh of the evening with a horrified “What did you wear?” But she’s a child: she bewails a break-up with “his name’s all over my humanities folder, it really hurts!” The cast should adjust their timing: laughs were so loud on the first night that some top lines were drowned.

The climax of Act I — Lizzie Clachan’s bare domestic set having opened rather beautifully to a seaside panorama — involve five priceless minutes that I must not spoil, except to say with a shudder that Doon Mackichan as the single friend illustrates the dire effect that Madonna and Lady Gaga have had on the stiff-knee generation.

The second act flies beyond sitcom without losing comic pace. Things happen and questions tease: do middle-aged parents confuse moral and safety concerns with secret envy? Is it all right to sag a bit and stay married out of cowardice? Cleverly, there are three moments which could end it: one darkly farcical, one sentimentally tender, the last a truthful, funny tribute to love and resignation. 4 stars The Evening Standard, By Henry Hitchings, 20th October 2011

Tamsin Greig is a superb comic performer, and in this new play by April De Angelis she’s on top form. As middle-class mother Hilary, exhausted by parenthood and everyday anxieties, she is blissfully funny but also genuinely moving.

Hilary’s is a hollow existence, and Lizzie Clachan’s bare set suggests this perfectly: everything personal and interesting is tucked away in cupboards, allowing the living space to be maintained in a state of bleached banality.

It’s a laboratory for angst and brisk, nervy conversation. Hilary’s husband Mark (Ewan Stewart) is inert, and her work seems noble but tiring; she’d rather glug white wine and exchange pungent opinions with her sassy, yet often laughable, friend Frances.

Above all she is shocked and fascinated by her strident, sulky daughter Tilly, who is 15 and full of worldly contempt. The interest is not reciprocated. Hilary is appalled by the provocative way her daughter dresses, which she associates – rightly, as it turns out – with the risk of her getting into trouble with boys. Tilly, played with gut-wrenching precision by Bel Powley, reserves her energy for ridiculing her mother’s taste in jeans.

Tilly’s relationship with morose-looking Josh brings Hilary into contact with parents whose approach is very different from her own: steely Bea (an excellent Sarah Woodward) and flirtatious actor Roland (the well-cast Richard Lintern).

Misunderstandings proliferate, and Nina Raine’s snappy production accentuates the first half’s rich comedy. In the second the intensity drops, as the writing takes improbable and unsatisfying turns – including some ludicrous business with a gun. Yet the humour remains.

This is a shrewdly observed picture of midlife crisis and the travails of marriage, as well as a striking depiction of the gap – in both time and ideology – between women such as Hilary, who camped at Greenham Common, and their daughters, whose lives revolve around Facebook, texting and nightclubs.

Doon Mackichan’s supple Frances, who is blessed with a lot of the zingiest lines, declares “Being a woman and getting old is a disaster”. De Angelis puts this claim to the test. The play’s politics are slight, and its feminism isn’t exactly heavyweight. But for the most part it’s perceptive, vigorous and entertaining. 4 stars Daily Express, By Simon Edge, 20th October 2011

When Hilary was a student she mad day trips to Greenham Common and dreamed of a utopian future. Now She’s 50, about to lose her job and has a husband who won’t tell her she could pass for 43 even to cheer her up. Worse, she has a tearaway teenage daughter. April De Angelis’ cruelly funny new play focuses on the agony of a particular generation of women.Coming from a right-on, sexually liberated generation who kicked against the repressive morals of their own parents, they struggle to cope with the rampant precocity of their daughters.

In one scene Hilary and her unsupportive husband Mark sit with clenched teeth listening to the bouncing bed springs as 15-year-old Tilly couples loudly in the next room, because at least they know where she is. It’s left to Roland, the father of Tilly’s on-off boyfriend Josh, to voice the obvious forbidden thought when he explodes: “All this liberal s***_ we should just beat them senseless like our parents did”. Packed with smart one-liners and horribly keen observation, the play is a vehicle for the impressive talents of Tamsin Greig, of TV’s Green Wing.

With her tombstone face and empty black eyes, she gets right into Hilary’s harrowed, affection-craving soul yet manages to dig comedy out of the angst. She is magnificently supported by Doon MacKichan, of Smack the Pony, as her man-eating best friend Frances. Bel Powley brings flashes of vulnerability to the bratty Tilly, while Seline Hizli is irrepressibly cheery as her dim friend Lyndsey. Ewan Stewart and Richard Lintern provide solid support as Mark and Roland, even if this is not a play to over-concern itself with male characters. Directed by Nina Raine and designed by Lizzie Clachan – her minimalist North London interior cunningly unfolds into a Norfork beach – this is a rapier-sharp comedy that will ring horribly true with the parents of teenagers.

The Guardian, by Michael Billington, 20th October 2011

April de Angelis has written a funny, generous play about a woman – a left-leaning feminist who once protested at Greenham Common – facing a crisis at the age of 50.

In the old days, the heroine would be a harassed Knightsbridge mother coping with a reluctant debutante daughter and a philandering husband. In De Angelis’s version, the protagonist, Hilary, lives in Walthamstow and has to deal with the likely loss of her job in education, a dwindling marriage and a mutinous teenage daughter. Once upon a time, a crisis would arise when the daughter would burst in through the french windows and breathlessly announce: “Mummy, I think I’m preggers.” Although today the language is more blunt, the action still hinges on how Hilary, now separated from her husband, confronts the problem of dealing with her impregnated offspring.

Even if, at heart, the play is deeply traditional, it shows a sharp awareness of the plight of the modern middle-aged woman. De Angelis’s Hilary knows what she doesn’t want to be: a sexually aggressive figure like her friend, Frances, who at one point launches into a deeply embarrassing burlesque routine. But it is Hilary’s uncertainty as to how she should behave that gives the play its bounce. There’s a very funny scene when Hilary, hoping to read Great Expectations to her husband in bed, is driven frantic by the sound of creaking springs from her daughter’s adjacent room. And, as Hilary’s marriage declines, she handles the sexual advances of a predatory actor with a mixture of fascination and alarm. Like all De Angelis’s heroines, she is torn, as Dominic Dromgoole once pointed out, between empowerment and debilitation.

This makes the role an ideal vehicle for Tamsin Greig, who has a natural gift for conveying strength and vulnerability at the same time. She has the air of a tough cookie, yet looks suitably shamefaced when forced by her best friend to dress as a French maid and guiltily evades the glances of a boy student who lovingly tends her wounded leg. Where other actors take you by storm, Greig conquers by stealth. She is well supported by Doon Mackichan as her sexually adventurous confidante, Bel Powley as her chippy daughter and Richard Lintern as her neurotic suitor, while Nina Raine’s direction is crisp, clear and confident. But, although the play visibly works, I still scented a strong whiff of the Shaftesbury Avenue of yesteryear.

Education workshops available. For more information please visit our Education Section

Related Pages