Imagine my shock when I was invited out to Dinner, only to be told it was at the old C&A store in the Brunel Shopping Centre, is there a new restaurant opening that I have missed or are we eating at the old staff canteen from back in the day?
After finding my way through the back entrance to the shopping centre, after hours, I am at possibly the most awkward middle-class dinner party.
With a menu of Primordial Soup for entrée, Apocalypse of Lobster for main and Frozen Waste for dessert, this promises to be far from run-of-the-mill meal.
Ok, I have not really been invited out to Dinner, I’m out to watch Dinner. The Moira Buffini classic expertly put on in the quirkiest venue I have been to watch a play by the team at Darkroom Theatre Company and expertly directed by Olly Webb.
As the title implies, the play follows a dinner party thrown to celebrate the success of Lars’ (Kevin Bray) self-help book by his wife Paige (Laura James).
As hostess Paige has carefully chosen her guests. Wynne (Ella Thomas) a provocative eroticist and vegetarian, who is making moves on Lars. Wynne’s lover Bob, a politician who has in fact just dumped her so didn’t turn up after she exhibited a painting of his ‘purple’ genitals, Hal (Paul Marks), an old friend of Lars who left his suicidal ex-wife for a younger woman Sian (Cerys Hodgkin) a TV newsreader.
Completing the line-up, for now, is the deathly silent hired help, a waiter found on an obscure website (James Tutt) who only answers to the demands barked by Paige.
The meal is interrupted by the arrival of Mike (Harry Freeman), a van driver who has crashed in the fog, who is eventually persuaded to join the celebrations in place of the absent MP.
As the meal comes to an end, Paige ‘invites’ everyone to play a game, a game that sees Sian articulate her knowledge of murder weapons, allows Wynne to describe how Lars took her cherry, lets Lars dump Paige and then we are treated to the first words from the waiter as no one is quite prepared for the show’s conclusion.
Darkroom Theatre Company shine once again with an amazing cast who each made their parts their own. Laura James excelled in bringing to life the spiteful, sharp and forthright Paige over the course of the evening whilst the remaining cast members delivered strong intelligent and sometimes chilling (literally) performances in the weirdest of settings for a play.
If you get the chance to go and see a Darkroom performance, do it!
