Who doesn’t like a family gathering eh? Turns out most people by the looks of this play and that might just be accurate.
Young Playwright Elijah Young brings up their offering for the 50 year celebration of Live Theatre, a world premier of the play Cold Buffet, with a family-centric drama, revolving around three events over a five year period. Set in the north east in three acts, a funeral, a wedding and a christening, we see the family dynamics erode ever more as the play progresses.
The story centres around five main characters and always the same buffet room. Ellis is the black sheep of the family, a gay man who lives down south, played by Nick Blakeley. I have to admit I couldn’t shake his likeness to Matt Hancock even vocally at first, and when I did it was replaced by character act Jonathan Pie, but well performed all the same.
Other characters include David, David's mother Evelyn, David’s partner Ayeesha and Ellis’s cousin Max (Beth Fletcher Morris). David is a solid character seemingly in a mid life crisis as he got together with Ayeesha who he happened to meet while giving her driving lessons.
Everyone has their solid roles: young Max, a peacekeeper of the family, who recently changed their name, also acts as a cheap photographer and a breaker of tension. Evelyn is the family matriarch seemingly holding the family together, while simultaneously pulling it apart! Jane Holman plays Evelyn well like a true old school battle axe of a grandmother.
Ayeesha often steals the show with her cringe- worthy over-niceness and positivity, and natural people pleasing urges. All of which merely masks her real feelings and soon breaks down under real pressure and scrutiny. Played by Amara Karan whose credits include (the Twilight Zone, Dr Who, Marvel's Lucky Man and various Shakespeare productions. Her OTT style is captivating and a wedding dance scene with David (Jim Kitson) was most amusing - the crowd lapped up every second of it.
There were some nice touches with David doing a speech in character in the press area before the play started and in each interval the area was updated as a kind of backstage to the main stage with a karaoke area in the first interval (Karaoke at a funeral? That’s niche!) and the wedding cake in the second interval, good attention to detail, making the play stand out a bit.
The audience seemed to lap up all the jokes and the tension felt so real at times, I was tempted to actually look away. Sometimes it’s hard to tell who’s story they are telling, especially in the first two parts it almost feels like the main character is the dead grandad. The ending I found a little strange, possibly some catholic symbolism - it was unclear to me. But overall this was an enjoyable watch and Elijah Young may well be a young writer - no pun intended - to watch.
Running Thursday 5th October - Sat 28th October 7.30
Matinees Sat 7,14 and 21st October 2pm
Thurs 12, 19 and 26 October 2pm
Sun 15, 22 October 4pm
*Photo Credit: Von Fox Promotions
Frank Cromartie Murphy
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