Comedy. M5 F12. Three interiors. First produced in 1938.
From far and wide four generations of the family gather to celebrate Charles and Dora Randolph's golden wedding anniversary. It is largely Dora's loving wisdom that makes this momentous occasion a chance for a few of her scattered brood to regain, within the security of the home, a new strength of purpose. All join that evening in toasting 'The Family' - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape nor, in our innermost hearts, ever quite wish to.
At their big country house in Essex, Dora and Charles Randolph are celebrating their diamond wedding anniversary, together with assorted children and grandchildren. It is a time of gratitude nostalgia and concern, and, of course, contrasts; daughter Margery and her husband Kenneth, both plump and easygoing, happy with their children Flouncy and Bill (engaged in continual sibling rivalry); daughter Hilda, getting more neurotic and more successful; son Nicholas, unmarried and secretly loved by Dora's quietly attractive companion Fenny. Back from Paris after seven years absence is self-styled black sheep Cynthia, afraid to tell her parents of her now-shattered affair with a married man. But Dora has mellowed and mother and daughter are reconciled - Dora would now sooner lose a principle than a daughter.
Life at the house is quite ordinary but always interesting with everyone's quirks and feuds being exposed and resolved until finally, delightfully and clumsily, Nicholas realises he has always loved Fenny. They will marry, bringing Fenny officially into the 'dear Octopus' that is the family from whose tentacles the members can never quite escape, or wish to.
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