The Hills of California review: 'ambitious, substantial and intriguing' play

Nicola Turner, Nancy Allsop, Lara McDonnell and Sophia Ally in The Hills of California

An ambitious tale of flashbacks, regret and parental pressure

(Image credit: Mark Douet)

published 15 February 2024

"A new Jez Butterworth play is a big deal," said Alice Saville in The Independent. His "era-defining" drama Jerusalem (2009), and his award-winning Irish epic The Ferryman (2017), have made him the most venerated British playwright of his generation. So is The Hills of California another triumph on that scale? Alas, not quite. Like those plays, it has a "hefty running time, sprawling cast and, most of all, massive emotions sploshing messily across the stage". But this new piece – a family drama set in a guesthouse in Blackpool in the baking summer of 1976 – lacks the "pace and tautness" of Butterworth's best work. It's an ambitious, substantial and intriguing play. But it's not a great one.

I found it "magnificent, moving and quietly furious", said Sarah Hemming in the FT. It crackles with the same "terrific, sharp humour" as Butterworth's previous triumphs, and simmers with "love, rage and loss". At the Sea View guesthouse – misnamed and forlorn – the Webb sisters gather as their actress-turned- landlady mother, Veronica, lies dying upstairs. The eldest, Joan, left for California 20 years ago, and hasn't been back since. Later, in flashback scenes, we learn that Veronica had tried to groom her daughters into an Andrews Sisters-style singing group. This is a "funny, brilliantly layered drama about lost dreams, trampled hopes, parenting and letting go" – all cut with anger at the "bleak truth" of childhood abuse.

The evening is staged with characteristic elegance by Sam Mendes, and is wonderfully acted, said Dominic Maxwell in The Sunday Times. Laura Donnelly in particular dazzles in her twin roles as Veronica and Joan. But the play suffers from Butterworth's decision to "tackle trauma, grief and sexual and emotional abuse by circling round the edges of them, rather than really getting stuck in". I felt that the "overbearing plot" rather flattened both the characterisation and the play's emotional reach, said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. Butterworth's ambitions are as grand and daring as ever. But the "gorgeous set, dominated by a beautiful staircase, has heights and depths that the play itself does not reach".