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What's On > 2004 - 2005 Season >
Shakers Restirred >
Chronicle Review - September 22 2004
(click
here to visit this review on the Evening Chronicle Website - half way down
the page)
Shakers: Restirred, People's Theatre
Shakers is the place to be seen, the hippest cocktail bar
in town. But its heavenly exterior hides a hellish core.
Inside, Carol, Adele, Nicky and Mel work as long-suffering
waitresses, who serve the dregs of the town's nightlife, with little reward.
Their smiling have-a-nice-day faces conceal an inner
resentment, aimed at the rude array of characters who treat them like slaves.
They struggle to juggle their Bloody Marys and Pina Colodas,
as they serve their demanding customers, which include obese yuppies,
jack-the-lads who try it on, stuck-up It Girls and a birthday party where
everyone gets sozzled. The false smiles say it all.
Shakers: Restirred, directed by Andrew Craggs, is actually
a complex play kept simple as all of the parts are played by just four
actresses. As it progresses, we learn more about each character, as they reveal
aspects of their background and their life beyond the club, in spotlighted
monologues.
Carol (Ellie Pullen) tells us about her university degree,
and her frustration at the customers, who assume she is uneducated. What keeps
her going is the fact that she knows she will "make it in the end." Nicki (Laura
Amy Riseborough), meanwhile, dreams of a life overseas.
Although there is a serious side, such as the story of
Adele (Danielle Forrest), who struggles to juggle her work with her child, and
Mel (Beverley Craggs), who hides a secret and is content to be where she is, the
play is kept light hearted - and the audience lap it up.
The young cast should be commended for what is an enormous
challenge, but one which is pulled off with some confidence. A criticism is that
the play is overly long, at two hours, and much of the character acting could
have been cut out, as it is similar in places and can be hard to follow. A
little more variety in the set pieces would have been welcome as the story
evolves to incorporate areas beyond the bar, yet, the actors' costumes, nor
their surroundings, do not change.
An intriguing aspect is that there are few props. Instead,
the cast has to rely on gesturing and utilising the space around to convince.
The play has an adult nature, with some strong language, but much of it is
reflective of reality, and is therefore necessary.
The biggest achievement is the acting. I can only predict
that all of the actresses involved have bright futures ahead of them.
DAVID WILKIE
.....And here's what ANDREW MITCHELL thinks of Shakers: Restirred
This entertaining play is very much in the same mould as
other Godber classics, Teechers and Bouncers, in that it has an unfussy set, few
props and actors performing multiple roles.
The scene is Shakers, a trendy cocktail bar. Four
waitresses, Carol (Ellie Pullen), Adele (Danielle Forrest), Nicky (Laura
Riseborough) and Mel (Bev Craggs) take us through their working day - serving
the hard lads after the loose women, the girls' night out, the businessmen, the
City boys, the theatre crowd, the boys' boozy pub crawl, the trendies, the
squares, the rich and the poor.
The four actresses, most notably Laura Riseborough as
Nicky, change seamlessly from waitress to yuppie to a bunch of hyper girls out
on the pop. Each girl steps into the spotlight during the show, delivering a
monologue, in which we are given a deeper appreciation of their individual
character.
The production, however, lacks polish, but there is no
denying these are four talented actresses with potential. Godber's plays are
essentially one and the same and, unfortunately, are rather generic in their
content.
Working-class people poking fun at the hypocrisy of the
middle classes is not exactly soul-searching or innovative material. Even when
Shakers was debuted in 1987, writers such as Alan Bleasdale were doing the same
job, but with far more panache.
But it is good fun and well worth a visit, nonetheless. At
the end of an evening of jokes and solid performances we left the theatre
pleasantly stirred but happily unshaken.
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