KOSHER HARRY. To 11 May.

London

KOSHER HARRY
by Nick Grosso

Royal Court, Jerwood Theatre Upstairs To 11 May 2002
7.45 Mat Sat 4pm
Runs 1hr 50min One interval

TICKETS 020 7565 5000
Review Timothy Ramsden 4 May

Fun all the way – even if the end leaves you wondering how far the piece has taken you.While good and evil battle in a rural barn Downstairs, the Royal Court's rooftop studio takes a light way with moral conflict in a London diner. Harry sold up years ago and whatever was kosher went with him.

The spelled-out thoughts of Jez Butterworth's characters in The Night Heron are contrasted by Grosso's script, which reads like a single sentence. And almost plays like one, with indirect, half-expressed thoughts crashing against one another in a storm of unreflective babble.

It's often very funny as the young Waitress besotted with a male customer pours out her rage against the bigger-breasted beauties who've kept her in the shade. In come a flabby cabbie - easily persuaded he has a chance with the well-endowed waitress through the partition – and his fare. She's a dolled-up senior who comes for nostalgic 3 o' clock teas at Harry's - her old home from home with her dear departed husband. Until he departed home in pursuit, like most males in this cartoon-café world, of a mammarially advantaged female.

The old lady's not so deaf as she likes to appear. And – the only flaw in Kathy Burke's precisely-played production - Martin Freeman's Man, despite the shirt-end hanging assertively outside his trousers, doesn't match the scruffiness assigned him in the script. Yet he has the quick facial responses and detachment that fit the sudden, late change of tone when his ability to take advantage of the others' absorbing passions emerges.

There's a sustained picture of quiet-screaming desperation from Claudie Blakley as the waitress ready with a red garter to take her chances when they seem to come, plus good work from Mark Benton's cabman, cheeky enough until his sexual vulnerability's tested, and June Watson's apparently wheelchair-bound widow. As her sudden taking to the dance-floor shows, there's life in this old girl yet, close behind the bewigged formality.

Grosso and Burke maintain an unnerving unreality. There are plenty of touching moments among the comedy, though the final shift of mood encourages the suspicion the piece isn't quite kosher drama – more a brilliantly over-extended sketch with a long-delayed punch line.

Waitress: Claudie Blakley
Man: Martin Freeman
Cabbie: Mark Benton
Old Woman: June Watson

Director: Kathy Burke
Designer: David Roger
Lighting: Colin Granfell
Sound: Scott George

2002-05-05 13:10:42