Homecomings in drama are rarely happy. Think of Aeschylus, Pinter or Wesker's Roots.But even by those standards, Michelle in Michael Wynne's scabrously funny new play - his first for the Court since The Knocky in 1994 - has a tough time discovering that Birkenhead is about as welcoming to its returning daughters as Argos was to Agamemnon.
Michelle and her boyfriend Robert have forsaken Clapham to buy a five bedroom house a stone's throw from the working class estate where she grew up.
Idealistically, she wants to be part of a community and see the turnaround in Birkenhead; to which her sister replies, with characteristic pragmatism: "I'd like to see that too."
And, in the course of a grisly family party, Michelle discovers that her dad is living off false hopes of a return to the shipyards, that sister Donna is coping with a disturbed son and layabout partner, and that her niece, Kirsty, is a 16-year-old single mum psychotically hooked on fame.
What is refreshing about Wynne's play is that, like The Knocky, it uses comedy as a vehicle for social criticism. We laugh at Donna's obsession with psychic phenomena and her belief that something spooky has happened to all the local pets.
Only in a stunning first act climax do we see the connection between this and her catatonic son. Equally, her daughter Kirsty is first seen as a comic figure so besotted by fame that she "wouldn't even mind having a stalker".
Only gradually do we learn that Kirsty is more dealer than wheeler. Liverpool's centre may be enjoying a rebirth but, as Donna says, "One square mile of wealth doesn't do anything for the surrounding twenty."
Wynne's territory is Birkenhead, but his theme has national resonance: that traditional manufacturing crafts and skills are being replaced by service industries and property developments. But Wynne's skill lies in allowing his point to emerge through the interstices of a family comedy.
Dominic Cooke's adroit production reinforces this by playing up the social embarrassments of an upwardly mobile daughter returning to her roots. Presenting her guests with vine leaves stuffed with rice, Michelle is shocked when they're dismissed as "six shits on a plate".
Sally Rogers as Michelle captures the awkwardness of a woman caught between two worlds and there is first rate support from Michelle Butterly as her down to earth sister, Sheridan Smith as her niece and Stephen Mangan as the furtive boyfriend.
But really cheering is that Wynne has written a deeply political play while sending gales of unfamiliar laughter through the Royal Court.
