Rules for Living by Sam Holcroft,  is essentially a modern day farce: extremely funny with cleverly executed physical and verbal comedy in equal measure. A full-on food fight is so intense that some people in the front rows may have to duck for cover! The play supposes that everyone has coping strategies or ‘rules’ by which they live their life. In Rules for Living, we watch a family try to get through what becomes a more and more tense Christmas lunch, all the while abiding strictly by their own rules.: for example, “Matthew must sit and eat to tell a lie”, and “Edith must clean and self-medicate to keep calm”. These rules become all the more intriguing after Sheena reveals that her daughter Emma is suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, which she believes is brought on by Emma’s rule for herself that she must be the best at everything, which has pushed her to exhaustion. As the rules for the rest of the characters become more and more necessary, they also become more harmful until it seems that it will not be long before the rest of the characters are pushed to their limits by their strict rules for life.