Tim Firth’s Award-winning musical This Is My Family opens at Southwark Playhouse Elephant from 23 May – 12 July 2025..
Vicky Featherstone directs Nancy Allsop (Nicky), Victoria Elliott (Sian), Michael Jibson (Steve), Luke Lambert (Matt), Gay Soper (May), and Gemma Whelan (Yvonne).
Also announced today is the multi-award-winning creative team joining Vicky Featherstone – Music Supervision: Caroline Humphris; Set Design: Chloe Lamford; Lighting Design: Lee Curran; Sound Design: Dominic Bilkey; Costume Design & Associate Set Design: Ethan Cheek; Music Direction: Natalie Pound; Casting Director: Amy Ball CDG; and Associate Director: Vaila Anderson.
Close family. Dream holiday. Total nightmare.
‘Describe your family and win a dream holiday’. That was the competition pinging up on Nicky’s phone. So she describes the family she dreams of having, but not the one she’s got. The one she fears is falling apart. And then… she wins the holiday. Instead of choosing Rome or Orlando or anywhere else on earth, Nicky takes her family camping. Back to the place her parents went once, when they were her age, a thousand years ago. The place where they first met.
This is My Family, the hilarious and uplifting story of the disastrous family holiday that eventually brings the family together, won the UK Theatre Award for Best Musical in 2013 and is brought to London for the first time by Olivier award winners Tim Firth (Our House) and Vicky Featherstone (Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour).
Nancy Allsop plays Nicky. Her theatre credits include The Hills Of California (Broadhurst Theatre, Broadway and Harold Pinter Theatre), The Fever Syndrome (Hampstead Theatre), God Bless the Child (Royal Court Theatre), Annie (Piccadilly Theatre), and The Sound of Music (international tour); and for television, Young Wallander.
Victoria Elliott plays Sian. Her theatre credits include Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe), The Lost Disc (Soho Theatre), Hedda Gabler, Get Carter, Season Ticket Oh! What a Lovely War, Pub Quiz, The Wind in the Willows (Northern Stage), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Two, As You Like It (Royal Exchange Theatre) and I Can’t Sing! (Palladium Theatre), Cooking with Elvis (Hull Truck), and Tyne, 13.1, Jump, Me and Cilla, A Nightingale Sang, and Rhino and the Drum (Live Theatre, Newcastle).
Michael Jibson plays Steve. His theatre credits include Stranger Things: The First Shadow (Phoenix Theatre), Hamilton – Olivier Award winner for Best Supporting Actor (Victoria Palace Theatre), Roots (Donmar Warehouse), Road Show, Take Flight – WhatsOnStage Award Nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical (Menier Chocolate Factory), Brighton Rock (Almeida Theatre), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Timon of Athens (Shakespeare’s Globe), Our House – Olivier and WhatsOnStage Award nominations for Best Actor in a Musical (Cambridge Theatre), The Comedy of Errors (Royal Exchange Theatre), The Canterbury Tales (RSC) and A Chorus Line (Sheffield Theatres).
Luke Lambert plays Matt. He recently graduated from Arts Ed. This production marks his professional stage debut.
Gay Soper plays May. This marks her 60th year working in showbusiness. Her most recent West End credits include The Mousetrap (St Martin’s Theatre), Funny Girl (Savoy, transferred from Menier Chocolate Factory), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Apollo Theatre / Gielgud Theatre), Sunday in the Park with George (Wyndham’s Theatre).
Gemma Whelan plays Yvonne. Her theatre credits include Underdog: The Other Other Brontë (National Theatre), Upstart Crow (Apollo Theatre), Pinter at the Pinter: A Slight Ache (Harold Pinter Theatre), Radiant Vermin (Soho Theatre, Tobacco Factory), As Chastity Butterworth (tour), Dark Vanilla Jungle (Supporting Wall, Pleasance Theatre Edinburgh, Soho Theatre), One Man Two Guvnors (National Theatre and Theatre Royal Haymarket), Chastity Butterworth and the Spanish Hamster (Pleasance Edinburgh), Stephen and the Sexy Patridge (Trafalgar Studios), and Red Death Lates (Punchdrunk).
Tim Firth’s other theatre credits include Now Is Good (Chester Storyhouse, UK Theatre Nomination Best New Musical), Neville’s Island (Nottingham Playhouse and West End, Evening Standard & Olivier nomination, MEN Award), The Safari Party (Stephen Joseph, Scarborough and Hampstead), the musical Our House (West End, Olivier Award Best Musical), The Flint Street Nativity (Liverpool Playhouse) and Sign Of The Times (West End). His play Calendar Girls (Chichester Festival Theatre, West End) broke all British records for a professional and amateur play, was nominated for an Olivier and won the WhatsOnStage Best Comedy Award. Calendar Girls The Musical, co-written with Gary Barlow, opened at Leeds Opera house and transferred to the Phoenix Theatre, winning a WhatsOnStage Award and an Olivier Award nomination, and his musical The Band (Manchester Opera House, West End) won the MEN Best Musical Award.
