Synopsis

A remote country house in present-day England

Robin, a barefoot wild child with a piano for a heart, stands in the crumbling glory of his childhood home, defiant against the encroaching tide of reality. As his older brother Oliver hammers at the door, Robin clings to the last remnants of a fading dream – a world of fireworks, fancy dress, and fierce maternal love. But the death of their eccentric mother Lily has set in motion a reckoning that can no longer be ignored.

Stenham’s play crackles with the electric tension between freedom and responsibility, art and pragmatism. Through a haze of drugs, nostalgia, and raw grief, we’re plunged into a world where the lines between childhood and adulthood blur like watercolors in the rain. As Robin battles to preserve his bohemian paradise against Oliver’s attempts to drag him into the real world, we’re forced to confront uncomfortable truths about family, legacy, and the cost of clinging to the past. The house itself becomes a character, its peeling walls and hidden corners echoing with the ghosts of childhood and the weight of secrets long buried. With each revelation and each firework set alight, Stenham builds to a crescendo that threatens to burn everything to the ground, leaving us to question whether it’s braver to fight for a dream or to wake up and face the harsh light of day.