'My parents are here. In the walls and the floorboards and the bricks of this house. This is not only your street with only your stories.'

On a residential street in South East London, reclusive siblings Peppy and Daniel live in a house stuffed full of everything they have ever owned. With their eccentric appearance and their rampant garden hedge, they're not like others on their road.

When young Ben from next door comes visiting, looking for friendship, what happens next challenges everyone's idea of neighbourliness.

Deborah Bruce's play The House They Grew Up In is a tender, dark and funny look at co-dependency, anxiety, and living alongside those who are different from us.

The play was first performed at Chichester Festival Theatre in July 2017 in a co-production with Headlong.

'A subtle and surprising play that turns from the bleakest of comedies into a tender story of hope… powered by the kind of dialogue you could quote for weeks'

'An intriguing, slow-burn piece… [has a] gentle, thoughtful humanity'

'Powerful… has an extraordinary emotional impact'

'Upbeat but avoids sentimentality… a sympathetic look at modern urban hermitry and the pitfalls of excessive co-dependency'

'A humane plea for our tolerance of other people’s eccentricities'

Deborah Bruce is a writer and theatre director. Her plays include: Dixon and Daughters (Clean Break/National Theatre, 2023); Raya (Hampstead Theatre, 2021); The House They Grew Up In (Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 2017); The Distance (Orange Tree Theatre and Sheffield Crucible, 2014; a finalist for the 2012-13 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize); Same (National Theatre Connections Festival 2014); and Godchild (Hampstead Theatre, 2013).