Amanda Abbington as Esther and Alison Liney as Great Aunt Agatha in (This Is Not A) Happy Room [Mark Senior]

IN Rosie Day’s dark comedy, a dysfunctional family reunite in a Blackpool hotel for their dad’s third wedding. None of them expect it to turn into a funeral.

Bossy Laura (Andrea Valls) and Charles (Tom Kanji) arrive first with their baby. Laura immediately sends Charles off to ensure they have separate rooms with a view. Laura’s hypochondriac younger brother Simon (Jonny Weldon) skulks on stage in sunglasses and aided by a cane. Elle (Day), the baby of the family, an actress living in the US, breezes in last.

They are joined by their distant mother, Esther (Amanda Abbington), Great Aunt Agatha (Alison Liney in her professional debut at the age of 84) and later Hayley (Jazz Jenkins) a wedding guest and psychotherapist.

Over the course of 90 minutes, we follow the family dynamics as they bicker, tease each other and play truth or dare. Day is good at observing sibling tensions and rivalries; how the old pecking order and their various neuroses inevitably reemerge when they are reunited.

Day’s earlier play, Instructions for a Teenage Armageddon, is currently being produced for TV and there is a soapy feel to (This Is Not a) Happy Room. Maybe Day has another screen adaptation in mind. The jokes come thick and fast and director Hannah Price sets a terrific pace, but the characters lack emotional heft.

The play would have benefited from some pruning and Agatha and Hayley are largely redundant characters.

However, there’s much to recommend. Day is clearly talented – as an actress and a writer.

There is some brilliant comic writing here and she has a good ear for dialogue.

The cast is also a joy – strong and utterly credible.

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To April 27