Stranger Things’ David Habour stars in dramatic Mad House theatre performance | Theatre | Entertainment

US playwright Theresa Rebeck adds extra spice to the familiar dramatic recipe of a dysfunctional family gathering like jackals to fight over their inheritance. Michael has spent some time in an asylum and is ill-equipped to handle his father’s tantrums. Nor does palliative caregiver Lillian (Akiya Henry) – whom he refers to as “the Death Nurse” – give him much respite.

When his two siblings arrive – banker brother Nedward (Stephen Wight) and control freak sister Pam (Sinéad Matthews) – battle lines are drawn. Where there’s a will, there’s a war.

Thematically, there is nothing here that hadn’t already been tackled by Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams or even Shakespeare. But Rebeck creates vivid characters and can spin dialogue as merciless as it is funny.

Harbour is terrific as Michael, a hulking presence with a bottled angst that spills out in a weary, articulate wit – he tells his sister: “I don’t think he’s in any pain because he is so energetically committed to inflicting it.”

Lugging an oxygen cylinder, his eyes glittering with malice, Pullman as Daniel plays against the nice guy characters of his movies with mischievous glee. He throws food on the floor and demands cigarettes and whisky with an emphysema-driven growl.

When Michael returns from a rare outing to town with a pair of sex workers (Hanako Footman and Charlie Oscar raunching it up to the hilt), it descends from black comedy to outright farce.

But director Moritz von Stuelpnagel knows precisely how to handle Rebeck’s wayward material.

And Frankie Bradshaw’s set – a battered kitchen that revolves to become the equally rundown front porch of the family’s Pennsylvania home – is ripe with details from a crucifix on the wall to Michael’s lovingly tended plants that offer visual clues to their wobbly history. Worth seeing for the performances alone.

Mad House Ambassadors Theatre until September 4 Tickets: 0333 009 6690