Blessings

Following its acclaimed debut as a shortened piece at last year’s Riverside Bitesize Festival, Sarah Shelton’s Blessings - an emotionally charged exploration of family dysfunction - returns to Riverside Studios for the premiere run of the full play from 30 September to 26 October 2025.

Bold, brilliant and blisteringly honest, Blessings is a must-see new work exploring faith, family, control and the lies we tell to keep everything from falling apart.

Behind the polished front door of the Deacon household, tradition is crumbling, secrets are festering, and change is coming - whether they like it or not. In a small English town in the 1960s, formidable matriarch Dorie Deacon is determined to keep her Catholic family respectable while Frank, her husband, maintains a silence that suggests he sees more than he’s ever let on. But as her children return home to celebrate their traditional family Easter, their carefully constructed image begins to crack. From smug eldest son Martin to razor-sharp Penny, rebellious Frances to watchful youngest daughter Sally, the Deacons are anything but united. And with a new boyfriend on the scene, a family priest who knows more than he’s saying, and plenty of unspoken truths lying under the surface, the household is a pressure cooker ready to blow. As secrets inch toward the surface and confessions are avoided, tension mounts toward a devastating and unforgettable climax. Is truth always the best policy? And what would you do for love?