Tag Archives: Matthew Dunster

DEALER’S CHOICE

★★★

Donmar Warehouse

DEALER’S CHOICE

Donmar Warehouse

★★★

“The cast is uniformly strong, bringing definition to Marber’s testosterone-fuelled ensemble”

Three decades after its debut, Patrick Marber’s Dealer’s Choice returns to the London stage in a muscular revival at the Donmar Warehouse. Mostly set in the sweaty basement of a mediocre restaurant, this brutal portrait of male compulsions and laddish bravado still cuts deep, even as it reminds us just how entrenched and ugly blokey culture was in the mid-90s.

Written before Marber’s later success with Closer, Dealer’s Choice remains arguably his most vivid piece in a canon of hits: a searing, funny, and ultimately hollow study of men addicted not just to gambling, but to delusion.

Director Matthew Dunster’s production taps into the play’s timelessness, capturing the dreams, denials, and desperate self-mythologising that haven’t changed much even as mobile phones have turned from bricks to razor blades.

The cast is uniformly strong, bringing definition to Marber’s testosterone-fuelled ensemble. Daniel Lapaine is chillingly precise as Stephen, the restaurant owner whose demand for control barely masks his own compulsions. His bullying interactions with his son Carl – played with a raw sadness by Kasper Hilton-Hille – form the play’s anguished emotional core, even if their conflict at times feels contrived.

Alfie Allen flutters about as pallid Frankie, the wide-boy waiter whose cocky swagger only thinly veils a deeper frustration. He captures the double purpose of the bantz – as weapon and shield. Theo Barklem-Biggs, meanwhile, is the most impressive of the lot, bringing tightly wound fury to Sweeney, the chef desperate to save face – and some money – for a day out with his daughter.

The late arrival of Brendan Coyle’s Ash, a taciturn force with his own dark motives, shifts the game’s stakes dramatically. Coyle’s performance is an embodiment of seething menace: his mere presence alters the dynamic, exposing the men’s bravado for the fragile veneer it is.

But it is Hammed Animashaun’s turn as Mugsy that lingers longest. Mugsy, the hapless, endlessly optimistic dreamer who hopes to open a restaurant in a disused public lavatory in Bow – not inconceivable these days – is the heart of the play. Animashaun, a blissfully funny actor, manages to balance clownish exuberance with bruised humanity, making Mugsy’s pipe dreams oddly touching. He alone seems fully rounded in a cast of men who appear only to perform for each other.

Dunster’s production leans into the claustrophobia of the setting, with Moi Tran’s set design ingeniously lifting the restaurant’s kitchen and dining room skywards to reveal the grim basement beneath, the card table rotating throughout so we see every face. Some knowledge of poker helps in the occasionally confusing second act.

If the production occasionally overstates the father-son melodrama, and its feral language is jarring, it never loses sight of Marber’s essential insight: that in this world, the biggest gamble isn’t with money but with self-worth. Dealer’s Choice reminds us that laddish culture, for all its swagger, often masks desperation and loneliness. The red flag of the ’90s has become a fully blown crisis in the intervening decades



DEALER’S CHOICE

Donmar Warehouse

Reviewed on 29th April 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Helen Murray

 

 


 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

BACKSTROKE | ★★★ | February 2025
NATASHA, PIERRE & THE GREAT COMET OF 1812 | ★★★★★ | December 2024
SKELETON CREW | ★★★★ | July 2024
THE HUMAN BODY | ★★★ | February 2024
LOVE AND OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE | ★★★★ | October 2021

 

 

DEALER’S CHOICE

DEALER’S CHOICE

DEALER’S CHOICE

2:22 A GHOST STORY

★★★

Royal & Derngate Theatre

2:22 A GHOST STORY at the Royal & Derngate Theatre

★★★

“For the audience, there are goosebumps aplenty but no cause for nightmares”

With its previous West End successes fresh in the mind and the production now on national tour, this play by Danny Robins has all the signs of becoming a cult classic. As the house lights go down, the audience whoops and even screams in anticipation.

Lauren (Vera Chok) and her new boyfriend Ben (Jay McGuinness) are invited around to the home of Sam (George Rainsford) and Jenny (Fiona Wade) for food, drinks and a friendly catch-up. It’s a classic comedy set-up that builds on past rivalries, marital bickering, and one-upmanship between the couples. And there’s a lot of humour at play here – particularly in the ribbing between the two men – but the clue is in the title. This is not primarily a comedy but a ghost story and each of the characters has their own story to tell. The main story is that of Lauren who has witnessed and heard strange goings on at precisely 2.22am over the last few mornings and the four friends agree to wait up to witness it all for themselves. Two digital clocks are constantly on show and whilst we enjoy the shenanigans of the dinner party throughout the evening our eyes are on the clocks as the minutes move closer to the moment of truth.

The ensemble doesn’t quite gel at first. A lot of dialogue is lost in the vast Derngate auditorium as characters speak over each other. Fiona Wade excels as the exhausted mother of a new baby, exasperated that her husband can’t accept that what she has seen is real. George Rainsford is the star of the show, his bouncy enthusiasm driving everything forward. Acting newbie Jay McGuinness does well as cockney-chappie-builder, dressed in a blue suit and no socks (Cindy Lin costumes). Vera Chok gets better as Lauren gets drunker.

Sparing use of eerie soundscape heightens the mood (Ian Dickinson sound) and in a story of this type there simply has to be a scene with fog rolling in and lightning strikes (Lucy Carter lights). The set (Anna Fleischle set design) looks somewhat cramped making movement around the household furniture awkward (Directors Matthew Dunster and Isabel Marr).

Signs of the ongoing redecoration allow discussion about neighbourhood gentrification and the trend for a new generation to do away with the past. This then connects with the possibility of resident ghosts objecting to the new change. Part serious, part absurd.

It’s up to us to decide how ludicrous any of this party talk might be. Jenny, after all, is genuinely scared. For the audience, there are goosebumps aplenty but no cause for nightmares. And plenty to think on once the clock reaches 2:22.

 


2:22 A GHOST STORY at the Royal & Derngate Theatre (as part of UK tour)

Reviewed on 10th January 2024

by Phillip Money

Photography by Johan Persson

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

THE MIRROR CRACK’D | ★★★ | October 2022
THE TWO POPES | ★★★★ | October 2022
PLAYTIME | ★★★★ | September 2022
THE WELLSPRING | ★★★ | March 2022
BLUE / ORANGE | ★★★★ | November 2021
GIN CRAZE | ★★★★ | July 2021
ANIMAL FARM | ★★★★ | May 2021

2:22 A GHOST STORY

2:22 A GHOST STORY

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