Review of Isabelle – a debut driven by big ideas and family conflict | Section

There are many reasons to admire Hull’s Middle Child, a small but determined company in Yorkshire’s East Riding.

It has a passion for creating new writers, a big ambition (the founders say they want it to be “the most famous theater outside London”) and has been one of the first companies to live in the National Theater under Indhu Rubasingham.

What’s important about Middle Child’s commitment to new writing is that it gives inexperienced writers the confidence and tools to turn fences into a big, bold project. Sometimes, they connect, but not every attempt is successful, and that’s okay.

Marc Graham’s debut is not a home run, but you have to admire the effort.

Isabelle grew from a 30-minute performance at the company’s new festival in 2024 to a 90-minute-long piece that has been chosen to launch the company’s permanent venue, Hull’s new theater (and another reason to admire it).

Isabelle tells the story of the eponymous matriarch, a single mother to three differently-abled children.

We join them in the Christmas haze as Isabelle gathers her three children, two daughters and a son, for a big announcement. Next is a sub-Ayckbornian mythology about family secrets revealed in single words, weighty relationships and a dialogue that verges on Wildean wit and fails. All the characters are very ready to reach for words, from Shakespeare to Marx, which makes Graham’s dialogue difficult to distinguish between the characters. There is an inconsistency in the way the family speaks that makes it impossible to empathize with any of them; they appear to be more expressions of the author’s views on wealth redistribution than the inhabitants.

The addition of a foreigner with uncertain intentions does not go well; he’s also very eloquent – so much so that Graham creates shows like Radio 4’s Few Minutes to justify putting the man on a soapbox.

It’s not that there isn’t potential here, but to be honest, Middle Child’s support of a new author is something that should be appreciated.