“funny and glamorous and poignant and delightfully rude”
Salmaan Mohammed aces it in their one hour, one person show ‘Cybil Service’ from deep in the bowels of Waterloo at the VAULT Festival.
Somewhat misleadingly billed on the festival site as ‘cabaret drag and burlesque’, this is in fact a smartly funny and poignant piece derived from the performer’s own experience working first as a drag artist then for government under lockdown.
Their drag alter ego makes a glamorous entrance at the start of the show. The stuff is strutted for sure but the fabulous outfit is soon shed – with some audience help – for wicked stories of Zoom meetings gone wrong and some sharp commentary on diversity driven governmental box ticking.
Who knew the Department of Transport was so keen to accommodate a self-identifying ‘weirdo and misfit’? And what happens when gay life is in the way of a new bus route? The writing is smart and the delivery fast and telling. Dominic Cummings even gets a memorable mention as a sentient turnip.
Sal Mohammed was funny and glamorous and poignant and delightfully rude in this sparkling tour de force of a show.
“This delighful soufflé of a play is a sure-fire hit”
The Mill at Sonning is a jewel of a theatre unlike any other. A picturesque and very derelict watermill was converted into a playhouse some 40 years ago and the same family run it to this day, serving up a sustaining combo of buffet dinner in the restaurant followed by good old-fashioned theatrical entertainment in the newly airconditioned 215 seat theatre. It’s little wonder audiences are so enthusiastic and loyal.
Neil Simon’s romantic comedy ‘Barefoot in the Park’ was a hit for Robert Redford when it opened on Broadway in 1963. Set in a flakey fifth floor apartment at the top of a New York brownstone, the play’s theme is young love and what happens when opposites attract.
Buttoned-up newbie attorney Paul Bratter (Jonny Labey, Eastenders’ Paul Coker) thinks that slipping into a less formal tie while he works on his legal papers is the perfect way to spend the evening. His wife of six days Corrie (Hannah Pauley) has other ideas. A boozy Albanian dinner setting up her mother with a Hungarian lothario (splendidly flamboyant James Simmons)? No problem. The cracks in this new relationship begin to show just as soon as the newly weds attempt to settle into their less than ideal new apartment.
Labey is well-cast in the role of Paul. He has excellent characterisation and delivery, and a fire-cracker turnaround in the final scene. Hannah Pauley fizzes with charm as his mismatched wife Corrie Bratter. Rachel Fielding as her mother has some scene-stealing moments as she has her own little epiphany in the second half. There’s a nicely delivered running gag about the inaccessibilty of the apartment and some witty repartee from Oliver Stanley as the repairman Harry Pepper.
This delighful soufflé of a play is a sure-fire hit for the Mill at Sonning. Great performances of some sassy dialogue, tight direction (Robin Herford), period outfits (Natalie Titchener) and a proper time machine of a set (Michael Holt). One happy audience guaranteed.
