PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES. To 2 April.

Hornchurch

PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES
by John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk, Cass Morgan, John Schimmel, Jim Wann

Queen's Theatre To 2 April 2005
Tue-Sat 8pm Mat 24 March, 2 April 2.30pm
Audio-described 2 April 2.30pm
BSL Signed 23 March
Runs 1hr 40min One interval

TICKETS: 01708 443333
www.queens-theatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 14 March

Pump Rock from Pump Folk in Pump Country. And the Dinettes are delicious.There exists a superb, defining account of Country music, but this isn't it. The multi-authored, Route 57, North Carolina musical revived at the Queen's has none of the range or power of Robert Altman's film Nashville. Yet, Corneo Gas and the Double Cupp Dinette sidling up close as a one-stop filling-station for every traveller's stomach and tank, make for a pleasant way to enjoy the upbeat and soulfully sad aspects of Country music.

However you see it - Corney ole' chords or the Double-Cupp delight of Dolly Parton and Tammy Wynette soundalike sisters it's the songs that are going to get you if anything does. One's barely over before the next's being cued in the few spoken lines. In this world men don't let a date hold them back when the new fishing licence comes through while women, sweet, smiling, aiver so nice, make the real running. Sweet smiles just cover a steely will made stronger by its moral certainties.

They're sweet as the pie they offer, but try coming back if you didn't leave a tip first time round. Men are like children by comparison, be it James Earl Adair's mature sex symbol whose fancy new shirt for The Night Dolly Parton Was Almost Mine just illustrates his capacity to be overawed, or Philip Reed's Jackson, a happy consumer with the James Dean looks who'd see no cause to be a rebel if you explained it to him with diagrams.

There's sympathetic humour, but this is a concert-party for the faithful; those who put Country first. And Matt Devitt's Hornchurch production enjoys every minute, with Mark Walters' aptly garish set allowing sight of the dust-trail outside, while a car-bonnet conceals a keyboard, a pile of tyres hides a snare-drum.

The cast seem to be having a party; Devitt's main rehearsal task is likely to have been deciding which ideas from this creatively fertile group couldn't be included. The detailed interplay between characters, or Wendy Parkin's Prudie sassily trawling the audience for suitable men, show that, if Country is your territory, you won't find it served up better than here.

Rhetta Cupp: Loveday Ingram
Prudie Cupp: Wendy Parkin
Jim: James Eaton
Jackson: Philip Reed
Eddie: Peter Helmer
LM: James Earl Adair

Director: Matt Devitt
Designer: Mark Walters
Lighting: Chris Jaeger
Sound: Whizz
Musical Directors: Matt Devitt, Julian Littman
Choreography: Kraig Thornber

2005-03-15 01:50:16