Lorna Irvine reviews 'a wonderfully written, bitterly funny piece'.
This is a pub brawl with a difference—one that can't be fixed with a teary 'I love you' and a bear hug. This is much more brutal: this is family stuff.
Actor/writer Anita Vettesse's play, a co-production with Oran Mor, Sherman Cymru and Bristol's Tobacco Factory, has three excellent performances and a Bible-black script, focusing on Tom (Stephen McCole), his sister Kay (Hannah Donaldson) and imperious mother Anne (Anne Lacey), whose loving exchanges turn to ash when they discuss the inheritance from the recently deceased father.
The young people bicker as only siblings can—over career choices (Tom is a charity worker in Africa; Kay has dabbled in pyramid schemes and dodgy jobs, the latest of which appears to be Reiki-based holistic healing, with questionable qualifications) but when they learn Anne has no intention of giving them their inheritance quite yet, the shit hits the proverbial fan.
Neither wanted to work in the Black Bull pub which their father owned, and, as it soon becomes apparent, neither did Anne. Lacey gives a superb, deadpan performance as the mother from Hell, whose every scowl could turn single cream to cottage cheese.
And even if the twist of physical comedy towards the end has a scene which you can see coming from a mile off, it's a wonderfully written, bitterly funny piece which should ring a bell with anyone who has tried to make it pay in these uncertain times.
At Oran Mor until November 14.
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