Till the Stars Come Down: a Nottinghamshire story comes home
A wedding should be a beginning. In Beth Steel’s Till the Stars Come Down, it is also the moment when years of family history, disappointment and unspoken resentment finally come to the surface.
Set in Mansfield, the play follows Sylvia Stone as she prepares to marry Marek, a Polish immigrant who has built a new life in Nottinghamshire. Sylvia’s sisters, Hazel and Maggie, are beside her, the wider Stone family is gathering and everyone is determined to enjoy the wedding. At least, that is the plan.
Once the ceremony is over and the drinks begin to flow, the family’s carefully maintained good behaviour starts to slip. Private frustrations become public, old loyalties are tested and the celebration moves towards a reckoning that could change the family forever.
Although the play explores grief, prejudice, economic hardship and the legacy of industrial decline, it is also extremely funny. Steel understands that family life rarely separates comedy from pain: a cruel remark can arrive in the middle of a joke, while laughter can provide a brief escape just when events seem at their bleakest.
A play rooted in Nottinghamshire
Beth Steel was born and brought up in Warsop, near Mansfield, and the people, language and history of north Nottinghamshire have frequently shaped her writing.
Her earlier plays include Ditch, Wonderland and The House of Shades. Wonderland, which examines the miners’ strike and the dismantling of the coal industry, earned Steel the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright. The House of Shades returned to Mansfield to trace several decades in the life of a working-class family.
Till the Stars Come Down grew out of that same world. Steel has spoken about falling in love with writing large, complicated characters from Mansfield and wanting to place them at the centre of the stage. She also recognised that a wedding could provide all the dramatic ingredients more commonly associated with a funeral—ritual, heightened emotion, family history and long-held secrets—but with joy, hope and the future mixed in too.
The result is a play that feels intensely local without being limited by its setting. The dialogue, humour and social history belong unmistakably to Nottinghamshire, but the tensions within the Stone family are immediately recognisable wherever the play is performed.
That balance helped make its first production, at the National Theatre in 2024, a major success. The play was nominated for the Olivier Award for Best New Play, while Lorraine Ashbourne received a nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. It transferred to the Theatre Royal Haymarket in the West End in 2025 and has since attracted numerous international productions.
Now, fittingly, it has come home.
A new Nottingham Playhouse production
The Nottingham Playhouse staging is the play’s first regional production. Rather than recreating the National Theatre version, the Playhouse has assembled a new cast and creative team under director Caroline Steinbeis.
A K Golding plays the bride, Sylvia, with Ivan Ivashkin as Marek. Emma Pallant and Leah Brotherhead play her sisters Hazel and Maggie, while Howard Ward appears as their father, Tony. The family gathering also includes Graeme Hawley as John, Joe Alessi as Uncle Pete, Sadie Shimmin as Aunty Carol and Ellie Daley as Leanne. Anya Marshall and Amelia Yates alternate in the role of Sarah.
Designer Oli Townsend’s setting brings the wedding celebration out into the auditorium, using the theatre’s aisles, steps and audience space to make spectators feel less like detached observers and more like guests who have found themselves seated uncomfortably close to a family argument.
That sense of participation is important. The production moves from the intimate bustle of the women getting ready, through the ceremony and reception, and into the increasingly exposed emotions of the evening. Wedding clothes loosen, carefully arranged appearances begin to unravel and the physical space changes with the atmosphere.
The Nottinghamshire setting is present in more than the accents. Beneath the celebration lies the history of a community altered by the loss of the mining industry. The pain of that change has not disappeared; instead, it emerges through unemployment, frustration and resentment towards those considered outsiders. Marek’s success and Polish identity make him a focus for feelings that have much deeper roots.
Yet this is not simply a political drama. At its heart are three sisters whose affection, rivalry and shared history give the play its emotional force. Steel allows them to be loving, infuriating, generous and destructive—sometimes within the same conversation.
What the reviewers have said
The response to the Nottingham production has so far been extremely warm.
The Notts Edit awarded it five stars, praising its authenticity, use of the Playhouse space and balance of humour and tension. Its review called the production “beautifully poignant and unforgettable”, highlighting the way details such as live camcorder footage, costumes and the staging of the wedding draw the audience into the family gathering.
The Reviews Hub also strongly recommended the production, describing it as “powerful and relatable”. Particular praise went to the chemistry between the three sisters and to Steinbeis’s direction, which brings the action beyond the conventional limits of the stage.
The British Theatre Guide called the production “a triumph for both Steel and Nottingham Playhouse”, noting the natural quality of Steel’s writing and the uncomfortable pleasure of recognising familiar family behaviour in the characters.
Local publication Nottingham Culture similarly praised the ensemble for feeling like a genuine family whose relationships existed long before the audience met them. Its review admired the play’s mixture of affection and viciousness, while observing that its many themes—class, prejudice, grief, loyalty and industrial decline—occasionally compete for space.
Across the reviews, several performances have received repeated praise. A K Golding’s Sylvia, Emma Pallant’s frustrated Hazel and Leah Brotherhead’s conflicted Maggie give the play its central emotional structure. Ivan Ivashkin brings both vulnerability and anger to Marek, while Sadie Shimmin’s formidable and increasingly merry Aunty Carol appears to be emerging as a particular audience favourite.
A homecoming worth celebrating
There is something especially satisfying about seeing Till the Stars Come Down staged so close to the community that inspired it. After its success in London and overseas, the play returns to Nottinghamshire carrying all the recognition it has earned—but still speaking in the rhythms of Mansfield.
It promises an evening of generous, sharp-eyed theatre: funny enough to feel like a celebration, painful enough to leave a mark and honest enough to make almost everyone recognise something of their own family.
Till the Stars Come Down runs at Nottingham Playhouse until 26 September 2026.
We’re looking forward to seeing the production ourselves.
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