Karis Kelly’s Consumed, winner of the Women’s Prize for Playwriting 2022, is a kitchen-sink drama with very sharp teeth. What begins as a comic family gathering for a grandmother’s 90th birthday slowly mutates into something much darker and far more unsettling.

At its core, the play examines four generations of Northern Irish women, reluctantly reuniting for a family birthday celebration which, unhappily for them turns out to be anything but enjoyable in spite of the party hats and balloons. The party swiftly descends from cheerful preparations into a night of conflict, revelation, and reckoning as each character slowly reveals the emotional baggage she carries of her time- inherited trauma, unspoken violence, shifting gender expectations, and the fragile bonds of family loyalty. In Katie Posner’s direction, the domestic space is vividly realised — a well-used and recognisable kitchen where laughter, grievances, and secrets spill out as easily as cups of tea.

This is writing at its best. The verbal exchanges are quick-fire, funny and painfully recognisable. Julia Dearden’s Eileen, dominates as the sharp-tongued, foul mouthed matriarch, simultaneously cruel but vulnerable. Andrea Irvine, Gilly, a strong and principled mother, Caoimhe Farren, Jenny, a daughter caught between compliance and rebellion and Muireann Ní Fhaogáin, Muireann, all give finely tuned performances that outline their generational contrasts with clarity. The humour is witty and cuts sharp, but just beneath it sits a deep unease and a sense that the past is always present.

The realism of the early scenes gives way to surreal, almost mythic imagery, as buried histories erupt into view. For some, these shifts may feel uncomfortable as the symbolism used risks overwhelming the careful naturalism that precedes it.

Whilst the ending is a stretch of the imagination, the emotional impact of the play remains long after the journey home.

Consumed will leave you laughing, squirming (at times) and perhaps more importantly thinking about the ways that silence, memories and trauma are so easily transmittable across generational divides.

Sheffield Playhouse Until 11th October