DEALER'S CHOICE. To 30th November.

DEALER'S CHOICE
by Patrick Marber.

Salisbury Playhouse, to 30th November 2002
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat23,28,30 November 3.30pm
Runs 2hrs. One interval

TICKETS 01722 320333
Review Mark Courtice 13th November

Boys' night in with a gang of losers in an enjoyable and robust revival.
It's late at Stephen's restaurant, and if they can just get rid of that last customer, the boss, his ne'er-do-well son, chef Sweeney, and waiters Mugsy and Frankie can get down to their regular poker game. For each, winning represents a chance to escape the dangers and difficulties of everyday life; each can't stop betting even when losing means ruin.

Tonight they will learn uncomfortable truths about fatherhood and taking responsibility. This look at men's insecurities and rivalries set in the worlds of the restaurant trade and poker is enjoyable and robust. Neither field is exclusively male, but in this show it is only men's voices that hammer at us all evening long.

Both play and production reflect poker's switchback ride with its fast talk, instant disaster, desperation and excitement. But they don't explain the fascination; winning seems as wretched as losing.

Running a restaurant, on the other hand, seems like fun, involving a lot of sitting about, drinking top quality wine and the occasional bit of vegetable chopping. Despite a lack of convincing detail in the production, this of the two metaphors works best - a sequence between Mugsy and Stephen as they discuss running a restaurant and the moment when Ash realises that the kitchen is filthy, however neat the outside, are among the most effective.

Femi Elufowoju Jr's smooth production is a bit too well behaved - that dirty kitchen isn't really; sometimes the jokes (Marber wrote with Steve Coogan for a time) fall flat.

There are excellent performances from Eamon Geoghegan as Stephen, manipulative boss and hopelessly indulgent father, nicely pointing up the insecurity and weakness that underlie his calmness; and Michael Brogan as Ash, the professional gambler, treading the fine line between menace and melodrama by never forgetting the hopelessness of a man who always has another game to go to. Fergus McLarnon invests Mugsy with enormous physicality and verve.

Joanna Parker's clever traverse set sketches kitchen and restaurant well and uses the levels of the Playhouse Studio itself to suggest the basement glory hole where the rubbish and poker players end up.

Mugsy: Fergus McLarnon
Sweeney: Mark Frost
Stephen: Eamon Geoghegan
Frankie: Damian Asher
Carl: Iain Jones
Ash: Michael Brogan

Director: Femi Elufowoju, jr
Designer: Joanna Parker
Lighting: Malcolm Rippeth

2002-11-15 06:07:36