The Hills of California review – Jez Butterworth’s fractious family of singing sisters

Harold Pinter theatre, London
The Jerusalem playwright’s new drama, directed by Sam Mendes, follows four siblings coached as children to become stars and now reunited at their mother’s bedside

Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem is often cited as the best play of the century but for outliers who think of The Ferryman as a better work, this play comes with all the hope (and pressure) of the same wondrous alchemy. There are several similar components to that 2017 drama as Butterworth reunites with director Sam Mendes and actor Laura Donnelly (who is also Butterworth’s partner). Like the roots of The Ferryman, based on the disappearance of Donnelly’s uncle during the Troubles in 1981, The Hills of California also has a personal foundation, this time in Butterworth’s family.

The story features a dying mother whose four daughters gather at her Blackpool home in the heatwave of 1976 to say their goodbyes. Butterworth has spoken of his sister’s death from brain cancer in 2012 and although this is not her story, sibling grief is clear in the sisters’ fighting and apportioning guilt or blame. It is in these moments that the play feels most alive. Butterworth refreshingly centres female lives but overall it is an uneven drama, baggy in its pacing.