When a rare meteor shower lights the sky over a small English town, it sends a young woman and her ageing grandfather on different journeys, winding a rich tapestry of wonder, drawn from the heart, playing on the sad question of whether you can ever truly go home again.
Casey Jay Andrews’s captivating plays have always managed to do the seemingly impossible: to draw majesty from the mundane normality of modern life and imbue it with an elegiac, pastoral beauty. In previous tales, this has often been contrasting stories of people and animals crossing paths in strange ways. Here, she draws from the vastness of space and the magic randomness of a meteor shower, and contrasts them with the affections of nostalgia, the beauty of trees and the tragic but inevitable impermanence of life.
Centred around a large and beautiful doll’s house prop, Andrews takes the audience on a poetic journey, made more resonant with live musical accompaniment from Jack Brett. As ever, Andrews is an easy host with a gently welcoming manner and a sparkling good humour throughout. It makes the interjected breaks from the story and occasional ad-libbed comments feel more like interjections from a friend who is telling you a personal tale.
It’s yet another stone in the building of a grand romantic mythology of modern Britain which Andrews has been constructing piece by piece with every new fable she crafts. Oh My Heart, Oh My Home is another great creation, performed with delight and meaning in every joy and every sorrowful blow that lands throughout. Don’t miss seeing this play, it feels like coming home.