Creator: Table Ate Theatre
Director: Calum Shields
Harry is having the worst day; he has a trial shift at a busy restaurant, his snarky potential new boss Richard is already trying to sabotage him and the French chef is taking ketamine. Front-of-house Harry endures one humiliation after another as demanding customers and booking mix-ups derail his shift while the threat of languishing at the bottom of the Time Out restaurant rankings looms large when a critic picks tonight to review Martine’s.
Table Ate Theatre’s new play Taking Orders is an escalating farce that has realistic roots and it is clear that its origins lie in the real experience of working as a waiter. Performed at the Old Red Lion Theatre, this 80-minute play controls the waves of comedy well, building individual scenarios around diners and staff to create mini-peaks of hilarity while gradually eroding Harry’s ability to withstand the continual onslaught he faces. A classic sitcom episode approach, this cleverly managed one-man play uses invisible characters and the audience to suggest a scenario for Harry that everyone else can invest in.
Directed by Calum Shields, Taking Orders uses the small stage to create three separate spaces – the main restaurant complete with a series of cabaret tables and a bar, a back office where Richard spends most of the story and the doorway to the kitchen where Harry interacts with the unseen chef. The audience also becomes a crucial ingredient, with the fixed bench seating used to imply tables that Harry needs to move around (with some resistance from their occupants) while several viewers are co-opted into the show as fellow diners asked to participate in occasional improvisation, much of which is very funny.
Table Ate Theatre adds to the effect by using audio tracks in lieu of other actors, giving performer Harry Al-Adwani the additional challenge of both serving empty tables and reacting to absence as his bad day escalates to near hysteria. It is never clear why the mix of invisible characters and real audience members is the choice this production has made but, somehow, it works, and it is credit to scenario creation in Taking Orders and Al-Adwani’s performance that you quickly become absorbed in the increasingly ridiculous but enjoyable story.
The show borrows from and emulates some of the great restaurant comedies from Alan Ayckbourn’s Time of My Life to Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s Inside No 9 episode ‘The Bill,’ Fawlty Towers, of course, and even Pinter’s Celebration, utilising the contrast between tables, the growing tension between front and back of house and the increasing pressure to ensure good intentions go drastically awry. It is this mixture of classic farce and character-based comedy that works well for Taking Orders and although it may not land every joke, the unfolding silliness is sufficiently structured to keep the show on track.
Much of the credit for that belongs to Al-Adwani who gives an impressive and very technical central performance as the sole waiter trying to spin as many plates as possible while gradually crumbling. The small insights into dismissive customer behaviour help to balance the novice waiter’s ineptitude, giving Taking Orders that hint of authenticity that will make you hope this play gets a second setting.
Reviewed on 20 July 2024
