CARIBBEAN KITCHEN. To 6 March

Young People

CARIBBEAN KITCHEN
by Vanessa Walters

Birmingham Rep Door To 6 March 2004
Runs 55min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 6 March

Lots of good ingredients but who's it all for?Three generations of a Jamaican family meet in Granny's kitchen. After 40 years in England, Gran's bought a ticket home, but not told daughter Ruth and grand-daughter YoYo. As the watched pot comes to the boil behind them, the three work out a new understanding.

That's not easy: 11-year old Yo Yo's close to Gran but can't imagine what it was like arriving in England's ever-cold climate with hardly any money. The double-generation gap's caught in the script's most obvious joke; whether Spam means meat or an online nuisance.

Yo Yo's main quarrel's with mum, who won't splash out for a mobile phone. Just on the transition to secondary school, the girl catches the sudden style-consciousness that makes for playground cred or exclusion.

She's clearly lining up to be a teenager. But the play's advertised for 5+, and at the lower end of the age range there are different pre-occupations. And Ruth's striving for business success in the smart suit and mobile phone world, buying Yo Yo a private school place are seen more from her adult viewpoint than her daughter's. It's not something too interesting to young audiences.

Even more than Gran's explanation of why she's never gone back to the Caribbean life being a series of And then 's, small steps putting off the big stride home. It's in such parts the young Saturday morning audience members lost attention. They were much more held by Sharon Jones' ample physical moves cleaning the kitchen, Gran's attempts to raise an arthritic limb in imitation of Yo Yo's dance styles, or the trio's songs and dances.

The script doesn't glamourise Gran's memories sound effects may lull us into a travel brochure image of Jamaica the sea, the wind stroking the palm-leaves. But Gran recalls too the exploitative taxi driver.

Lorna Laidlaw's colourful and well-paced production has three well-characterised performances though it's incongruous for Gran to move from a good-singing voice to tone-deafness for an unimportant joke. Jones otherwise provides a happy link with the audience, contrasting Margaret Polack's rasp-voiced daughter and Fallon Scott's Yo Yo, swinging between lively and sulky.

Granny: Sharon Jones
Ruth: Margaret Polack
Yo Yo: Fallon Scott

Director: Lorna Laidlaw
Designer: Kate Bruce
Lighting: Simon Bond

2004-03-07 13:47:57