'Waitress' at the Adelphi Theatre

'Waitress' has transferred from Broadway to the West End, to the Adelphi Theatre on the Strand and it's a very nice feel-good tale about pies, domestic violence, pies, customer service, pregnancy, baking, illicit affairs, lots of sugar and spices, and, of course, sex. With songs thrown in for good measure. It's also about love and friendship and it made me smile. Oh, and did I mention pies? In these days of Brexit and Trump we can all do with a smile.

It's the tale of Jenna, our heroine, who is not only a waitress in Joe's Pie Diner but she bakes all the pies as well. She's clearly a nice person since she chats to and listens to Joe, the elderly owner of the diner who comes in every day for breakfast. We learn that she's become pregnant and is married to Earl, a universally unpopular man and there are signs of domestic violence to keep Jenna under control. He takes all her tips at the end of the day. She learns about a pie-making competition that could make her enough money to leave her husband and she also falls for her local doctor and they start an on/off affair. Months later and she has the baby, tells her husband to go away and leave her alone, now that she's empowered by the baby, but what about Joe and the diner? You'll just have to see it for yourself to see the ultimate ending.

It's a very American show in some respects but no less enjoyable. Do we have an equivalent to the diner waitress thing? I don't think so, but if you've been to America you'll have experienced it and you've certainly seen it in films. One moment I did find odd was when the doctor says there are ways to approach a pregnancy and Jenna blurts out that no, she's having the baby, without any mention of abortion. That's a dodgy topic in America so the author is playing it extra-safe given that those lines didn't even need to be said.

There are, of course, several sub-plots to keep us occupied, like Becky (waitress friend 1) having a secret affair with Cal (diner manager) and Dawn (waitress friend 2) marrying Ogie and these all have their own special scenes and laughs. In a way, that's what this musical is - it's about friendship and laughter, love and baking. What more do you need? There are a lot of songs in the show, very much current country tinged pop music that work really well and sound of now.

I thought Katherine McFee was excellent as Jenna as were Marisha Wallace and Laura Baldwin as Becky and Dawn respectively, great comic timing as well as great voices. I also like Stephen Leask as the diner manager who ends up having a rather raunchy affair with Becky. All in all, they make a great cast and it's a great show - if you need your spirits lifted you could do worse than go to see 'Waitress'.

PS: More pie for sale in the interval would've been welcomed...

'A Woman of No Importance' at the Vaudeville Theatre

A year of Oscar Wilde plays has started at the Vaudeville Theatre so it was time to jump in and get all Wildean. An additional draw was a cast headed up by Eve Best, Anne Reid and Eleanor Bron with the additional delight of William Gaunt having a small role as a local clergyman (I last saw him play John O'Gaunt, his namesake). With that cast and a Wilde play, what's not to like, especially when we were seated down the front of the stalls with perfect views?

The play opens at the country house of Lady Hunstanton who has invited a range of different people in the hops of having an interesting weekend. We have a young lady from America, various members of the aristocracy that seem to go from one country house to the next, a young clerk that Lady Hunstanton has taken an interest in, a politician and various others. A late Victorian play is, of course, full of morality and preaching and very so often you can clearly hear Wilde's Irish views spouted by the young American lady, a cypher for his own views on 'society' and the upper classes.

When Lord Illingworth offers the young clerk, Arbuthnot, a job as his secretary everyone is happy for him. It's a good step, after all. And his mother is invited to join the party for dinner. And that's where the tone changes since Mrs Arbuthnot ran away to live with Lord Illingworth when they were both young but he refused to marry her when she became pregnant. She doesn't want her son to have anything to do with the father who did nothing to help them all those years ago and we see her explain that Lord Illingworth is actually his father. That's where the twists and turns become ever more sharper.

It's a very enjoyable production, excellently delivered. Eve Best is a safe pair of hands as the 'woman of no importance', independent and strong whose only flaw seems to be her relationship with her selfish son. The son annoyed me - that's partly the writing of course, but mainly his stupid 'Ed Sheeran' hair style that was all over the place while everyone else was in character. It was a delight to see Eleanor Bron on stage who was imperious and, well, she played Eleanor Bron really well.

A very pleasant surprise was seeing Anne Reid on stage for the first time. Not only did we get a great performance but she came out in-between acts with some of the 'servants' to sing appropriate songs that helped the story move forward and she has a lovely singing voice. She was a friend of Barbara Cook so that's hardly surprising.

Once we got over young Arbuthnot's tantrums at the end of the play he finds a glove in his mother's drawing room, not knowing that Lord Illingworth had visited earlier and his mother had slapped his face with that glove. Her response to the question of whose glove it was was a very satisfying ending when she said it belonged to 'a man of no importance'. Take that!

Well done all, I really enjoyed this production and I'm looking forward to the next one now. Seeing a Wilde play every few months seems like a nice thing to do. Thank you Vaudeville for taking the plunge and committing to a Wilde year!