Review for Cooking with Elvis. Derby Theatre

This review first appeared on The Public Reviews on May 1st 2013

Cooking With Elvis is a dark comedy by Lee Hall, the writer of Billy Elliot and The Pitmen Painters. This excellent production is the Derby Theatre’s first in house professionally produced show and what a zinger it is!

Lee Hall’s brilliant writing in Cooking with Elvis has everything you would expect from an alternative comedy; ribald humour, stark reality, moments of deep discomfort, pathos and instants where the audience keel over with laughter. He writes about the complexities of human behaviour with inordinate skill and in a way that challenges the audience to think or re-think familiar situations and sometimes to shock.

The highly functional and impressive set designed by Hayley Grindle is a cross section of the family home so the audience can see what is happening in different rooms at the same time with uproarious results. The play starts on a dramatic note as the powerful music of 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' sets the scene and Jill the daughter (Laura Elsworthy) bursts in declaring it is scene one.

Laura Elsworthy’s character Jill is the most sympathetic of the show. A talented young actress, Elsworthy brings out all the angst that is hormonal teenage life and a surprisingly caring nature as she is left to look after her wheelchair bound Dad’s daily needs. In her own frantic needs to please she seduces her mother’s lover – the gullible Stuart – into having under age sex with her. Jill often appears vulnerable but her character turns out to be much more gutsy than she first appears.

Full figured Polly Lister sparkles as sexually frustrated Mam and the actress copes admirably with the bawdy action and lusty humour but quickly turns the comedy to pathos in a tear jerking scene where she expresses her love for her paraplegic husband. One minute she comes across as a dominatrix and next a lonely sobbing mess.

Stuart, wonderfully played by Adam Barlow is the next in a string of younger lovers Mam brings home to drink and have her way with. Barlow’s portrayal is that of a charming geek who is taken up with his job at the bakery and scared of Mam’s full on nature. As he settles into living with Mam he tries to take every advantage of his new position in the family unit even though his personality is often weak and confused, with a scant regard for the outcome of his actions. Another strong performance in a very strong cast of really developed and very human performances. A credit to the fine actors and Mark Babych’s directorial style.

Finally, it seems that Elvis has not really left the building at all and as this play at Derby Theatre proves, the audience would welcome back Jack Lord as Dad any time. Lord is just fantastic as the crippled patriarch. He is terrifically moving as the unfortunate paraplegic but he becomes energised and “All Shook Up” as the story turns fantastical and the former Elvis impersonator becomes the King again. Thus the audience are provided with a glimpse into Dad’s mind with hilarious results. Clearly an Elvis fan, Lord performs the half dozen Elvis songs with real spirit and authenticity. His powerful number at the finale has the audience going wild and the cast got a standing ovation from a capacity audience.

If the barometer of a show is people grinning from ear to ear and saying they would definitely come back for another helping of Cooking With Elvis then this show at Derby Theatre is a winner.

Review of The Kite Runner at Nottingham Playhouse

This review first appeared on The Public Reviews on 30th April 2013

From the internationally best selling novel The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini comes the play version by American writer, Matthew Spangler. This is the much anticipated European stage première at Nottingham Playhouse and is a Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse production directed by Giles Croft and given a stunning design by Barney George.

Khaled Hosseini himself calls the work an “intimate-epic” meaning that the narrative is often deeply personal and other times reflects on a sweeping adventure and ethical parable. The original story germinated from a newspaper report quoting that the Taliban had “banned the sport of kite flying in Afghanistan”. Hosseini, who enjoyed this sport himself in 1960s Kabul, was then inspired to write a short story which evolved into the novel. This story of Amir and his dual betrayals towards his childhood friend Hassan; the damaging consequences, the additional turmoil of destructive historical events in Afghanistan, takes us on a vast emotional roller-coaster journey spanning thirty years. This is also a compellingly complex story of the Afghan immigrant experience in America. Its themes are as much about a country’s struggles to live with violence and oppression as they are the freeing natures of true love and redemption. The heart breaking and painfully honest tale is told through narrative and reflective form through the main character Amir.

Amir is a deeply flawed character. As a child growing up in 1970s Kabul, he is in turns deceitful, dreamy, sensitive, capable of lying and betrayal. He has a budding ambition to be a writer and yet he constantly feels anguished and desperate to be loved by his successful but distant father. Given these traits he is not aloof to his shortcomings and failings. As he grows older and flees to the USA with his father, Amir’s story becomes one of guilt and remorse and a deeply felt wish to redeem himself. From an unexpected phone call the adult Amir seeks, “.. a way to be good again.” He must return to a Afghanistan under Taliban rule and save a life under life threatening circumstances or live with the guilt of his actions forever.

The Nottingham Playhouse production is a triumph of theatrical story telling as heartbreaking and moving as the novel itself with hope at its ever-shifting core. Matthew Spangler’s well executed storytelling ensures that we are gripped from beginning to end.

The production is blessed with a cast of ten actors and the Playhouse Ensemble supernumeraries as well as Hanif Khan the musician who creates tempo and atmosphere playing Jonathan Girling’s excellent compositions. The nine year old Amir and Hassan are played by adults BenTurner and Farshid Rokey. The challenge for Turner is that he has to play Amir as a child, a teen, a man at eighteen, twenty four and also narrate the piece as a thirty eight year old. And he does it superbly in a subtle and convincing performance that totally has the audience eating out of his hand. Afghanistan born Rokey as Hassan is immensely likeable and perfectly captures the character’s loyal, sweet and trusting nature. He is very believable as the tragic orphan, Sohrab, in the latter part of the play. Hassan’s father Ali (Ezra Khan) is a wonderfully understated performance straight out of a story book. The strong authoritative characters of General Taheri (Antony Bunsee) and Baba (Emilio Doorgasingh) command the stage whenever they are present and Doorgasingh’s portrayal of Baba as a man dying with cancer is heartbreaking. Nicholas Karami as Aseef the socio-path and later Taliban leader is disturbing to the core.

In the gentler roles Nicolas Kahn as Rahim Khan exudes a quiet confidence and a sympathetic note as the family friend who encourages Amir’s writing. Lisa Zahra adds a welcome female note in a practically all male cast as Amir’s future wife Soraya and is particularly convincing in a very short scene as Mrs Nguyen the Vietnamese shop owner.

The stage set is a simple ochre coloured cobbled street curved like a shallow bowl with a backdrop of large truncated fence panels. The episodic nature of the play is enhanced and demonstrated through wonderful projections and a massive story teller’s carpet graces the stage throughout. Packing boxes are imaginatively utilised to create differing levels and particular scenes such as the Swap Meet market and a car journey. The lighting design by Charles Balfour was exemplary.

All in all, a totally wonderful theatrical experience that has the audience giving a well-deserved standing ovation.

Runs Until 18th May

Review: Me and Me Dad. Reform Theatre Company.

Me and Me Dad is written by Nick Lane, writer of Housebound and My Favourite Summer and performed at the Derby Guildhall (on tour) by a talented cast of three by the Reform Theatre Company. The show originally started life through the Hull Truck Theatre Company though its programme and practice of developing promising writers and encouraging new theatre pieces.




The story of Me and Me Dad begins just after Dave’s mum dies and Dave has to make a decision about what to do for the best. Like many family units, Dave’s mum always did the cooking in the family household and was very good at it. On the death of his wife, Pete, Dave’s dad, suddenly finds he has no idea how to cook. He may be inept and ignorant in the kitchen, but he’s not stupid. In fact, like his son, he is very likeable but this is going to be one long grind in the kitchen. So, putting his failing acting career on hold for a month, Dave returns home to look after his father, primarily to teach him how to cook. Well, that’s the theory, anyway. Playwright Nick Lane mines an emotionally rich seam of a very personal story and the play tackles an even more difficult and individualised subject than that of unrequited love that fed the prequel, My Favourite Summer. This time round the characters of Dave and his father are discovering how to fend for themselves, a loss of their own identities and how a young man can suddenly be forced to be a parent to his parent. Built into the story is the notion of the fear of getting things wrong, for all parties.

The two male leads are brilliantly and realistically played by David Walker as Pete and Ryan Cerenko as his frustrated son, Dave. Walker brings the husband and father who cannot let go of his dead wife poignantly to life and, to quote his son, “hovers around like a moth in shoes”. This character is no cardboard cut-out dad figure. Nick Lane has created a wonderfully believable character in Pete Lee, a man full of human variety; from obstinate to silly and full of lovable characteristics, even if very much set in his ways. Even his constant farting is somehow endearing.

Cerenko has the task of carrying the play through narration and acting out the often frustrating journey of the son in his mid-twenties. He is often subtly put down by his father and by the mad neighbour Joyce (Susan Mitchell) who treats him as if he is still a small boy. Cerenko carries this role off to perfection, instantly likeable as Dave, a character full of fluctuating confidence, one minute confident of his ability to teach his dad to cook and the next confused and hurt by his dad’s actions especially when his father tries to chat up his girlfriend, Susie.

The ragged jigsaw of a set, the family home, looks as blown apart as the family unit. As the play opens fine dust is rising in the living room as father and son are left alone to cope on the day of the funeral. It looks as if an emotional bomb has gone off but miraculously the furniture and the two estranged men are still standing.

The acting and direction are superb throughout but the acting honours must go to Susan Mitchell who plays the three female roles of Jean, the late departed mum and wife; Joyce, a loud and batty neighbour and terrible cook; and Susie the confidently brash girlfriend of Dave. As time flits back and forth throughout the play Mitchell inhabits each role to perfection: the caring and softly spoken mother Jean, very emotionally strong near the end in a tear jerking scene. Mitchell then becomes Aunty Joyce – a loud but well-meaning neighbour who cooks for and secretly fancies Pete and finally, as a complete transformation, we have the girlfriend Susie, smart, sassy, sexy and somewhat manipulative.

The dialogue is funny, touching, occasionally emotionally raw and judiciously uses a clever technique of two characters saying the same line in unison to reinforce the notion of family bonds. There are good displays of emotive bonding and the very believable cast’s chemistry works well to create a very engaging and rewarding evening at the theatre.

Me and Me Dad is directed by Keith Hukin

This review was originally written for The Public Reviews website 25th April 2013

Review by Phil Lowe.