Meeting Mary

• Original London Production (2005)
  London, England

When Mary, an 18-year-old uptight English miss, arrives in New York to stay with the father she hasn't seen since she was a young child, she is in for a shock. Not only does slack dad fail to meet her at the airport - so subjecting the poor lamb to the traumatising experience of New York's yellow cab service - but Mike is not the successful singer-songwriter with Broadway at his feet that Mary had imagined.

Instead, he is a feckless, struggling jingle-writer with a past he hasn't told her about, and a present that includes a lover to whom he can't commit and a songwriting partner who has problems of his own. Soon everyone is at each other's throats and skeletons tumble out of the cupboard thick and fast, until finally things are neatly tied up with a happy ending in which everyone is a little nicer and more understanding. This is, you see, not so much theatre as a live therapy lesson in how not to run your family life.