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Author
Moira Buffini
Director
Fiona Buffini
Design
Rachel Blues
Performers
Paige
Harriet Walter
Nicholas
Farrell
Penny Downie
Flora Montgomery
Paul Kaye
Paul Sirr
Adrian Lukis
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Wyndham's
Theatre
4
December 2003 - 3 April 2004 |
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Moira Buffini's
new play is an invitation to a meal
that surpasses anything served by the
likes of Nigella, Jamie or Nigel. Transferred
from the National Theatre Loft one can
only assume that its offering left producers
salivating at the prospect of entertaining
an audience and providing local restaurants
with a slew of potential customers.
Dinner
is set in the home of a highly successful
Deepak Chopraesque writer and his dispirited
yet attendant wife Paige who has lovingly
prepared a meal of gargantuan proportions
for a group of friends to celebrate
her husbands recent literary success.
Paige
goes to great lengths to explain how
she has planned everything even employing
a highly expensive more than capable
(silent) waiter to serve copious amounts
of champagne along with the food.
Immediately
the audience is aware that there is
something sinister afoot and as the
dinner guests arrive dishevelled and
wind and rain swept her hostess welcome
leaves all feeling uncomfortable. There
is winsome Wynne vegetarian, new age,
and first love of Lars from many years
ago; Hal, an old sparring partner of
Lars, and ex-husband of Paige's best
friend (who is now hospitalised for
depression). Sian is Hal's new wife
a very young, very pretty (see under
nothing between the ears) who clearly
resents being dragged to the countryside
for such an uncouth event.
From
the beginning it is clear that there
are relationship difficulties between
Paige and Lars the latter admitting
to Wynne his desire to leave Paige,
and further confessing to Hal that he
intends to file for divorce.
As the
meal is about to commence the guests
are interrupted by a thuggish Mike who
has broken down and needs to call for
assistance; he presents the gathered
diners with an explanation he is a thief,
en route with a stash nabbed from the
neighbouring mansion sufficient to appal
most of the guests. All, that is, except
Paige, who decides that as one of her
intended guests has failed to show,
she should extend the place to their
uninvited guest and so begins an evening
of table-mannered vitriole and discussion,
revelation and expose.
The play
is divided into courses, with no interval.
Each course is presented immaculately
both visually (Rachel Blues is the designer)
and with precision language Buffini
clearly at her best when supplying culinary
adjectives for each of the courses.
I won't
go into details because they are more
entertaining to discover oneself rather
like miraculously securing a table at
Gordon Ramsay and inheriting a previous
diner's order.
The dinner
table is the battlefield for Paige and
she makes use of all areas attacking
her guests, their loyalties, misconceptions,
human failings, and preferences.
Alas,
the dinner party ends rather ridiculously
a great pity given Buffini's lengthy
endeavours at scene setting.
As Paige,
Harriet Walter is wonderfully acerbic
and delivers each line with precision.
Nicholas Farrell is unconvincing as
her writer/husband, a weak performance
that lacked energy and passion. As vegetarian
Wynne, Penny Downie suffers rebuke,
dismissal and off hand slight with real
comic timing she breathes life into
the down-trodden new-ager and her interaction
with Walter's Paige is highly entertaining.
Adrian Rawlins and Catherine McCormack
as the newly weds fail to engage both
the cast and the audience into believing
their love for each other and the formers
remorse at his wifes distress. Surprisingly,
Paul Kaye as the erstwhile burglar Mike,
give a relaxed and convincing portrayal
of a working class intellectual.
Visually
stunning, accompanied by a sinister
though almost churchlike soundtrack,
Dinner offers audiences an evening of
dry humour lots of interesting anecdotes
for your own dinner party, particularly
pertinent for those entertaining vegetarians!
But it does not completely satisfy:
you might be left feeling hungry for
more.
Terry Finnegan |
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