pThe kettle boils in 1936 as the fascists are marching. Tea is brewed in 1946, with disillusion in the air at the end of the war. Twenty years on, in 1956, as rumours spread of Hungarian revolution, the cup is empty. pSarah Khan, an East End Jewish mother, is a feisty political fighter and a staunch communist. Battling against the State and her shirking husband, she desperately tries to keep her family together. pThis landmark state-of-the-nation play is a panoramic drama portraying the age-old battle between realism and idealism. iChicken Soup with Barleyi captures the collapse of an ideology alongside the disintegration of a family. piChicken Soup with Barleyi, the first in a trilogy that includes iRootsi and iI'm Talking about Jerusalemi was first performed at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry in 1958 and transferred to the Royal Court in the same year.p