Sometimes we get into a rut. This is especially true in a work environment where doing things a certain way because they always have been done that way is a common method of operating. And then someone new arrives in the office and starts questioning things, maybe offering alternative ways of doing the same thing to increase efficiency or sales. That’s what is about to occur in Roller Diner, the professional debut of Birmingham writer Stephen Jackson and the winner of Soho Theatre’s prestigious Verity Bargate Award for new writing.
The Roller Diner of the title is in Birmingham and owned by Eddie Costello (Joe Dixon). It is a bit run down – well let’s be honest, it’s a dive – and Eddie really doesn’t seem to be that interested in it. He leaves the day to day running of the diner to his daughter Chantel (Lucie Shorthouse) who runs the place with a rod of iron. The food, cooked by ‘chef’, well burger flipper PJ (Ricky Oakley) is pretty dire and the diner is barely surviving. Then, one day the door opens and in walks glamorous Polish emigre Marika (Lucy McCormick) who tells everyone she is a ‘super duper’ waitress and promises Eddie that, given two weeks, she can transform the diner. Marika is so confident of her abilities that she offers to take no salary during the two weeks, as long as the diner feeds her. Is Marika everything she seems and will her changes have a profound effect on Eddie, Chantel, PJ, waitress Jean (Rina Fatania) and the diner’s very strange regular customer (David Thaxton).
Cards on the table, I really did not like Roller Diner from the start. Stephen Jackson’s book is too convoluted and, seems to have had virtually everything bar the kitchen sink thrown in. There is love – both requited and unrequited – lust, deception, local and international gangs, prostitution, cheating, lying, a mutilated dog, a Brexit riot, casual racism, misogyny and, as that lot wasn’t enough, there is intergalactic space travel and possible mental illness in the mix. The first act was stronger than the second and the second wandered off all over the place introducing various new and more improbable elements. Whilst there were some good songs in the show, many seemed very short and some felt half finished in the way they ended.
Turning to the performance itself, and, I really think the cast made a great job of the script they had been given. There were some excellent singing voices on display – particularly Ricky Oakley and Rina Fatania – and the acting itself was pretty good throughout. Steve Marmion directs with aplomb and the set – designed by Anthony Lamble – really manages to capture the look and feel of an English attempt to recreate an American diner, as do the costumes for the waitresses. which are very ‘happy days’ in their style and colouring.
It feels odd that I didn’t enjoy Roller Diner. On paper it should be perfect for a lover of musicaltheatre such as me yet somehow, I never really connected with the show. I realise that this may put me at odds with others – after all this show is already award-winning – but I just didn’t feel the production at all. My normal measures of how I feel about a show is the feeling as I leave the theatre and whether I want to know what happened next. I’m afraid on both Roller Diner failed the test. If anything, I was left with that awful feeling that maybe I had missed something profound and life changing. The annoying thing is that the cast and production team were first rate and this was a case when, for me, the show just let them down.
Dawid Minnar Janine Ulfane – Photograher credit Alixandra Fazzina. “Survival of the fittest” is a phrase that originated from Darwinian evolutionary theory as a way of describing the mechanism of natural selection. Which means that even in the most inhospitable of placers, life will find a way – even if at times, you may look and think what’s the point? For example, in South Africa, the aloe plant is considered one of the country’s most powerful, beautiful and celebratory symbols. It survives out in the wild when everything else is dried. At the end of everything, the aloe is still there. And it is this survival that is at the heart of Athol Fugard’s A Lesson From Aloes which has returned to the UK and is currently in residence at the Finborough Theatre. Set in South Africa in 1963, where apartheid is at its height and the citizens are living in a paranoid police state. The play revolves around a middle-aged left-leaning couple – Afrikaner Piet Bezuidenhout (Dawid Minnaar) and hi
Since 1912, the Blackburn Musical Theatre Company has been entertaining the theatre going folks of this Lancashire town with their annual musical production. In that time, they have covered the vast array of musical theatre from their first production - Sunday - through to their latest - Hello Dolly - which I caught at the Blackburn Empire Theatre. Dolly Gallagher Levi (Sue Chadwick) is a woman that likes to meddle, or as she puts it, arrange things. Whatever you need doing, Dolly is the person for the job. And right now, she is the talk of turn of the century New York, having brought together Mr Horace Vandergelder (Kris Wlodarczyk), the well-known half-a-millionaire and Mrs Irene Molloy (Laura Mitchell) a widowed millener. Their engagement and subsequent marriage seems pretty much sewn up though neither is marrying for love. Horace, as he tells his Chief Clerk, Cornelius Hackl (Ryan Coe), and Assistant, Barnaby Tucker (Fletcher Illingworth), is looking for someone to r
Since July 2014, I've seen and reviewed 588 shows altogether. 2017 was a fairly quiet year with a total of 132 shows visited by yours truly. So, in the best traditions of end of the year ideas, here is my list of the top 10 shows that I've seen this year. Please remember, this is my list not anybody else's and if you don't agree with the pick, well, what can I say? 1. Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Bridewell Theatre This story of friendship and hope took two drag queens and a trans woman from Sydney to Alice Springs, in a big pink bus. Along the way, the met new friends and face rampant homophobia. SEDOS brought every element of the show together beautifully, and to a standard that you would expect to see in the West End. Sold out virtually as soon as it was announced, this was the ‘must see production of the year. 2. La Cage aux Folles, New Wimbledon Theatre This is was a touring production of a show that demonstrates the importance of family a
Comments
Post a Comment