Pelicans crossing swords over a dead mother’s will

Last of the Pelican Daughters Family reunion fireworks ★★★★✩

Publicity for this show has the tagline: ‘in folklore, pelican mothers feed their young on their own blood.’ Which suggests this drama about a family reunion is hardly going to be a bundle of laughs.

yet there are plenty here among the bloodletting, as the four Pelican sisters – Joy, Storm, Sage and Maya – meet up to celebrate their recently deceased mother’s birthday and divvy up her wordly goods, opening up old wounds and new.

the episodic format is introduced by chapter headings such as Flying Home and the Presentation – in which Storm delivers a PowerPoint dissection of the exact wording of the will, and states her case for a cut of each sister’s share of the inheritance as compensation for ‘unpaid labour’ taking care of their mother while the rest got on with their lives.

this is interspersed with flashbacks in which each of the sisters play their mother Rosemary (always in a red dress) and we get a glimpse of the fiercely independent, idealistic hippy eco warrior who raised her daughters and son luke on the mantra: ‘you’re a peli-can, not a peli-can’t.’

but have they managed to follow it? career woman Joy’s marriage is creaking under the weight of their inability to have children. Storm feels invisible, lonely and cut off from life. Sage is a head-in-the-clouds sculptor of debatable artistic merit, while globetrotting Maya has arrived with her annoyingly right-on, American yoga teacher boyfriend Dodo.

As the tension rises, so do tempers. Sisterly bonhomie in scenes of family rituals such as dancing to Grace Jones’s Pull up to the bumper change to bitchiness at the flick of a memory or revelation. it all makes for a lively and entertaining experience from bristol’s experimental company the Wardrobe Ensemble, in association with complicite.

thrown into the mix is an appearance by another female member of the Pelican clan – Granny, a likeable old biddy whose onstage presence is represented by a skeleton. And while plenty of skeletons are aired here, the show ends with a defiant nod to sisterly love.

Pleasance Courtyard, until Aug 25