COOKING WITH ELVIS To 10 December.
Hull/Tour.
COOKING WITH ELVIS
by Lee Hall.
Hull Truck Theatre Company Tour to 10 December 2004.
Runs 2hr 5min One interval.
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 September at Hull Truck Theatre.
Bad taste that's never tasteless.
Cake-making supervisor Stuart enters a sexual maze in Lee Hall's comedy which knocks aspirations against reality. Stuart has sex of a sort with the 3 family members whose unhappy home he enters for a quick coffee with English teacher Mam, but he's always the one with the dropped trousers or a mess somewhere on his anatomy.
Dad's paraplegic after an accident, but regains mind and mobility for fantasy recalls of his days as an Elvis impersonator; Elvis, The King, who died chock-full of junkfood on the toilet. The contrast between his head-lolling, wheelchair-bound stillness and pelvic rotations as he belts or purrs out songs for the dramatic moment encapsulates the play's point.
This Tyneside family plugs away at life, 38-year old Mam deprived of her sexual partner and adolescent Natalie with no-one to nurture apart from her tortoise. So Mam downs the bottle and Natalie puts on the calories, stirring both the foodstuffs she fondly makes and the plot.
Stuart's an unlikely saviour, and it's proper Chris Connel gives the most external performance, clown-like in his antics and sudden-pulled face expressions. Stuart never knows what's happening, innocently dragged into beds or, in a moment of sheer consideration, quietly giving sexual satisfaction to the wheelchair's inmate. (It seems to work, given the sole audible sound from Sean Oliver's Dad outside his Elvis mode. In the Elvis fantasy scenes, Oliver offers full-strength impersonations suggesting the bus accident deprived locals of a class act.)
But it's the women who give character depth. Jackie Lye's Mam is caustic and comic, but amid the fury provides glimpses of someone unwilling to give up on life just because of heavyweight responsibilities. Hall neatly distances events through having Jill introduce each scene by its title. Stuart's sex with a minor has a different perspective when the minor's just announced it as The Act-One Twist.
Natalie Blades brings a halo of warmth to Jill, radiating through a farcical moment when food and sex combine, Stuart's naked buttocks wobbling like uncertain blancmanges as he searches for a climax while Jill looks round him, Black Forest Gateau slice firmly in hand, to give a plot update. A peach, or Victoria Sponge, of a performance.
Mam: Jackie Lye.
Dad: Sean Oliver.
Stuart: Chris Connel.
Jill: Natalie Blades.
Director: Gareth Tudor Price.
Designer: Andrew Wood.
Lighting: Graham Kirk.
Musical Director: Jim Kitson.
2005-09-13 16:42:38