FOUR WOMEN AND A FUNERAL
Upstairs at the Gatehouse
★★★
“has potential to be hilarious if it goes further into exploiting the ridiculousness of the situation and characters”
Four Women and a Funeral, a new play by Jennifer Selway is a grounded comedy set in Restmore Funeral Home, celebrating the life of Reuben Roffe. Unfortunately, the only people who have turned up for the ceremony are ‘The Widow’ (Donna Combe), ‘The Mistress’ (Eliza McClelland), ‘The Guest’ (Leda Hodgson) and ‘The Celebrant’ (Victoria Jeffrey).
The play introduces us to the premise straight away, introducing the Widow and Celebrant well. We learn of the Widow and Reuben’s relationship to be tricky at times but overall loving, with the Widow consistently praising her dead husband’s work as a writer. Little is established about the Widow’s life outside of her husband’s at this stage, which is a detail that gets missed generally throughout the play. The show’s central plot is centred around the dead husband, and how each character’s lives related to him at some point. A man in whom we discover throughout the show, wasn’t the nicest or most honest to have lived, so the drama in which surrounded him felt slightly unfavourable.
A lot, however, is revealed about the Celebrant early on, information that will later unveil a rather large plot twist. The Guest is also introduced as a colleague of the deceased, but it’s quickly revealed that she is instead an FBI agent and the play transforms from a Farcical sit-com to a witty whodunnit. Leda Hodgson shines in this role, playing the special agent with deep focus and precision, contrasting well to her undercover escapades as the bubbly ex-colleague.
It felt at points that the style of the show was confused. The pacing and comedy of the show felt like an English Countryside farce, yet the play is set in America with the cast speaking in New York-like accents. This resulted in a pace that felt like it was falling behind itself. A more concise script could help with this, to make the action be snappier and move the story quicker.
The show does succeed in representing older women in roles and conversations that often go unrepresented on stage and screen. The women openly talk about sexual topics and there’s even a little woman loving woman representation thrown in there. However there were also moments where this felt at odds with itself; characters talking down about younger women for being young and speaking bad about each other for loving the same mediocre man. While the group – at a certain stage – shares a solidarity from both loving and being hard done by this man, I feel that message of female unity gets confused.
The play has potential to be hilarious if it goes further into exploiting the ridiculousness of the situation and characters. Eliza McClelland performs brilliantly as the mistress, enriching her performance with the melodrama that I think this play requires. With more rehearsal and a tightening of the script, this could be achieved throughout. There were several moments of laughter throughout the show, just too much time between each one.
FOUR WOMEN AND A FUNERAL
Upstairs at the Gatehouse
Reviewed on 15th August 2025
by David Robinson
Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:
FOUR WOMEN AND A FUNERAL | ★★★★★ | August 2025
SHOUT! THE MOD MUSICAL | ★★★ | June 2025
ORDINARY DAYS | ★★★★ | April 2025
ENTERTAINING MURDER | ★★★ | November 2024
THE BOYS FROM SYRACUSE | ★★★ | September 2024
TOM LEHRER IS TEACHING MATH AND DOESN’T WANT TO TALK TO YOU | ★★ | May 2024
IN CLAY | ★★★★★ | March 2024
SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD | ★★★ | February 2024
YOU’RE A GOOD MAN, CHARLIE BROWN | ★★ | December 2023
THIS GIRL – THE CYNTHIA LENNON STORY | ★★ | July 2023
