‘This house. It’s called “Sea View”. It’s just I’ve looked out of every window, and you can’t. You can’t see the sea.’
Blackpool, 1976. The driest summer in two hundred years. The beaches are packed. The hotels are heaving. In the sweltering backstreets, far from the choc ices and donkey rides, the Webb Sisters are returning to their mother’s run-down guest house, as she lies dying upstairs.
Jez Butterworth’s play The Hills of California was first performed at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End in 2024, directed by Sam Mendes, and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions and Neal Street.
‘Magnificent, moving and quietly furious… a rich, funny, brilliantly layered drama about lost dreams, trampled hopes, parenting and letting go’
— Financial Times
‘A remarkable play… unfurls with the richness and depth of a well-crafted novel… Butterworth remains a one-off, a man who can write plays about ordinary people that carry the charge of the great tragedies’
— Time Out
‘A strange and enthralling family saga, packed with warmth, hurt and rich texture… on a par with Butterworth’s Jerusalem and The Ferryman – a trio of flawed masterpieces’
— Evening Standard
‘Exquisite… Devastatingly moving, bitterly funny, tender, cruel and wise’
— The Stage
‘Rich, vivid and compelling… the West End is infinitely the richer for its presence’
— iNews
‘Beautifully well-written… Filled with believable, colourful characters… expertly engineered… a rich text, full of nuance and glorious dialogue’
— Express
‘Intelligent, witty and studded with good lines, fine performances, resonances, echoes and a lingering sense of loss’
— Sunday Times
