Dinner

Thank you for the invitation to join you for “Dinner”; a black comedy by the playwright Moira Buffini. In the play we are witnesses to a dinner party hosted by Paige; to celebrate the publication of her husband’s newly published book on Philosophy. Paige despises all her guests, including husband Lars, and the during the meal, she exposes the hidden truths of all of them. The menu consists of a starter of Primordial soup, a main of live lobsters, where the guests have to choose between releasing them into the garden pond or cooking them and for dessert, Frozen Waste. Assisted by a near silent waiter whom she has hired from the internet, we are taken deeper and deeper into Paige’s mind.

The director cleverly delivered all the layers and nuances within this script with a cast who worked very well and naturally together. From the start, there was the feeling that something uncomfortable was going to happen and it did… often. The cast had developed their characters brilliantly and delivered all the subtleties within them. As the story unfolded so did that the realisation that all was not what it seemed, and a sense of foreboding seeped into the audience’s consciousness. The twist at the end was very well managed by the directors and I had no idea that it was coming.

The rich red box set was papered in sumptuous flock wallpaper which gave the impression that this was the dining room in a grand house and I thought that the choice of decorating it all in red gave an added sinister feeling and an anticipation of the danger that was to come. The costumes worked well and complimented the character traits of the cast, and the wide variety of props were excellent including very realistic plastic lobsters. 

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