The House They Grew Up In, theatre review: This cluttered home is where the heart is

What an intriguing, slow-burn piece this is. Be patient, though, and don’t make hasty judgements – a sentiment that could easily act as the motto for Deborah Bruce’s new play, presented in a co-production with Headlong, about two reclusive grown-up siblings.

Peppy (Samantha Spiro) and Daniel (Daniel Ryan) live in the titular south London abode, which is absolutely stuffed with junk and clutter, the accumulations of the years; this is beautifully realised in Max Jones’s design.

Peppy, very bright, very highly strung and always talking, is the only one who ever ventures out. Daniel, at the highly functioning end of the autistic spectrum, has struck up an innocent friendship with the young boy next door that looks set to have devastating consequences for everyone. Weren’t things better when the siblings kept themselves to themselves behind their wildly overgrown hedge?

Like Peppy and Daniel’s house, the play itself could certainly use some decluttering, especially in a bogged-down start that threatens to stifle the audience with the siblings’ hermetically sealed existence. Yet Jeremy Herrin’s skilful production gradually allows Bruce’s gentle, thoughtful humanity room to breathe and is firmly anchored by a superlative performance from Spiro. She moulds with care Peppy’s very precise, benignly antiquated language – ‘My brother is decency’ – and we come to understand that her verbosity is her only defence outside the frightening, ever-moving outside world.

Until Aug 5, Chichester Festival Theatre; cft.org.uk