Review: Don't Dress for Dinner

This review was originally written for The Public Reviews.

Don’t Dress For Dinner – Palace Theatre, Southend

Writer: Marc Camoletti

Adapter: Robin Hawdon

Director: Bruce James

Reviewer: Jonathan Cooper

The Public Reviews Rating: 

Laughter flows consistently throughout Robin Hawdon’s adaptation of Don’t Dress for Dinner. A classic French story of the misadventures resulting from a married couple and their simultaneous affairs, the events of the play have been given a very English edge in the Palace Theatre Southend.

The most enjoyable aspects of the show are unquestionably the script and the charisma with which the cast delivers it. With an intentional detachment from reality, each of the five main actors excels at creating laughs through the use of the dialogue and their own comedic abilities.

If original writer, Marc Camoletti, could have a complaint with this adaptation, it would be due to the lack of consistency within the plays setting. The misunderstandings and drama that lead to the lies and comedy take place in the front room of a barn house two hours outside of Paris but little dedication is given to this. With the exception of a few well placed, and often hilarious, references, there is hardly anything within the play to pay homage to its origin.

The one room backdrop and regularly changing costumes tell more of a modern British countryside than anything French. However, this performance is not about attention to cultural detail and, to this end, the lighting and sound offer little towards the productions value.

What makes the show so enjoyable is its ability to create hilarity through rehearsed lines as well as through the improvisation of Ben Roddy and Damian Williams. There are some mistakes throughout but these allow for the greatest comedic moments to shine through while separating the proceedings even further from belief.

Damian plays the untrustworthy friend, secret lover and increasing drunk while bringing increasing joviality to his role. He breaks character only when the situation calls for his personal input unlike fellow cast member, Jacqueline Roberts, who occasionally finds it impossible to maintain composure when it would be preferable. He understands when his personality will benefit the show and offers the prefect level of over-acting for the situations.

There are no attempts or illusions of grandeur in this Don’t Dress for Dinner but, while there may be a few faults in detail, it does achieve something very important. It makes people laugh. Thanks to the charisma of the cast it is a very enjoyable play in which no two nights will be the same. In this world, there is a perfect place for simplistic, over the top and slightly slapstick humour and this is it.

Runs until 12th November.

Find the original review, and many others, here: thepublicreviews.com/dont-dress-for-dinner-palace-theatre-southend/

Goodbye Breakfast Club, Hello St. Elmo's Fire

There was a time when I first watched The Breakfast Club and felt a rather embarrassing level of empathy with the five characters. Sure, they may have been exaggerations and simplifications of real life and yes, they may have looked suspiciously like thirty year olds but it was impossible to not draw connections between the lives those high school kids were living and what my friends and myself were going through.

I would never risk calling the film believable or the characters accurate but there is a lot in their stories that can lend itself to real life. There is something in the characters' fears of each other and attempts to hide their intentions that resounds with my experience of school and even university.

A few months later I watch another film. St. Elmo's Fire. The characters were six years older (while the cast were exactly the same age) and they were done with high school. They were even done with university and they were finding their way into a grown up life.

At the time, it all seemed so far away from me. The fears of discovering what you wanted to do and holding yourselves together while moving forward seemed so distant. I couldn't imagine the idea of careers or relationships stealing my friends away when I was seeing them everyday at school. I couldn't picture the stress of finding a career when I still thought what I chose to do for A-Levels had any relevance to the rest of my life.

However, things change. The other week I found myself looking at the two DVD cases realising something. The days of living the lives of The Breakfast Club characters was over. My friends and I had hit the St. Elmo's Fire days.

My first thought was that this is a testament to my friends. In the first film, there's no hint that the group of people will be together even a day later, let alone years, and in the second, the friendships were made at university. The group we exist in managed to continue on from those angst filled teenage days to reach this next stage and face it together and I feel that deserves some celebration.

My second thought was something along the lines of swearing in an over the top and expletive manner. The main plot of the film that now depicts our time was the characters failures to adapt to life after university. Some distracted themselves by spending money, others lied, one became obsessed with someone they just met and only a few characters were really honest about what they were trying to do.

I didn't want to become like this. I didn't want to be trapped, missing the amazing times from my life before or during university and unable to fit into my new world. It was a real fear and something that almost stopped me making any progress. But then I remembered one of my favourite phrases... "It's time to nut up or shut up."

After all, the basic premise of the film is the characters learning to overcome the issues they picked up over their Breakfast Club years and dealing with their futures. I believe I've done the first of those two objectives and would like to believe I'm working on the second.

The time when we could let ourselves be defined by the things we liked and the people we spent time with is long gone. It's time to move on to the next stage. I'll be honest, it is a scary one even when you do feel like you're doing pretty well but my final thought on the matter made it all feel better. After the St Elmo's Fire (troubled and confusing but ultimately very exciting) years have been survived, you can sit back and enjoy the How I Met Your Mother years. And we all know those are going to be awesome.

A Change of Direction

I'm back in England now after enjoying the last few weeks in France with friends (which apparently left you guys to rip up the place). While I was there I realised something about what this blog became in its first weeks. In my excitement over starting my course and having focus for the first time in years I may have gone a little blog happy.

I guess it was similar to those times when you find a new band that you fall in love with. You listen to every song again and again as if each one of them is the best song since Boys Don't Cry. This can be kept up for weeks as you listen and love every chord and every lyric but one day you listen to Dreaming of Manhattan and realise that, while this is from the same band that gave you Do Better, not every song is golden.

And so, this is where I am. From now on I'll screen my thoughts, reconsider my views and make an attempt to improve what gets placed here. Hopefully I'll find my way to a better writing style but if not, at the very least, there'll be less random thoughts from my head that a surprising amount of you seem obliged to read (a fact that I thank you for endlessly).

Of course, there is a secondary reason for this change and it is somewhat more personal. It came from a separate realisation during my time away and it may surprise a few of you that it has taken me this long to get here but, in essence, I want to yell less.

Now, this isn't me saying I want to argue less. I love arguments as well as my passion for politics and pop culture but something does need to change. I want to be able to maintain a sense of composure while I argue rather than going on the aggressive as I so often do. This change won't be easy but maybe in considering my views more in my writing I can start to bring that into my real life too.

From now on you'll be hearing slightly less from me but what you hear should hopefully be slightly more thought out. In this vain I wanted the next thing I write to be something I've thought about a lot and so it will be a piece on British identity (if there is one) called Who Are We?.

Top 5 Holidays

In the ungodly early hours of Sunday morning I'll be leaving the country via ferry with ten friends to stay in France for two weeks. As always before a trip like this I'm unreasonably excited and thinking back over all of my best holidays. Here are the Top 5...


Number 5 - Devon 2008
Before we were brave enough to leave the country, my friends and I went on our second holiday to a beautiful house in Devon. The week fell in one of the happiest but most confused times of my life and was one of those situations where everything just seemed to come together and I could ignore any issues because I was surrounded by the best people.

What I remember most is that this week was a complete example of everything I had wanted from my friendships. The days were spent either travelling around the local area (which took a long time to get to) when the rain let up and sitting around playing games when it didn't. At night people drank which led to large amounts of running around, singing and unexpected henna use.The holiday also gave me the chance to start building the incredible friendship I now have with my first girlfriend after a long time of distance between us.

I won't say any more for a reason that will be made clear later, but for now I'll just finish with that fact that this week and the holiday before set a trend that I hope will last for decades to come.

Devon Crew 2008, minus Champagne due to life threatening illness.

Number 4 - New Zealand South Island 2002
One of the things I loved about living in New Zealand was how the country managed to contain two completely different identities. I lived on the north island in Wellington and much of life around there paralleled life in England with the exceptions of some cultural changes and a far more relaxed attitude to life. However, when we spent a few weeks travelling around the south island we found something entirely different.

The natural sights of beautiful forests and lakes that were so still they acted as mirrors for the surrounding peaks are carved into my memory clearer than anything I've ever seen. We took a cruise down through the river where parts of Lord of the Rings were filmed and I got to touch seals as they swam where the sea came inland. Past all the beauty and spectacle of the trip I loved travelling with my family. It was a family that had left everything we knew behind and journey across the world together. It was this holiday and the whole New Zealand experience that brought me closer to them.


Number Three - Ischgl 1996
While I was growing up my dad spent a lot of time working in Germany which led to some great holidays that I can barely remember. What I do remember (in vague pictures built up in my mind) are several trips to Austrian mountains where I learnt to ski. I love skiing and Austria as a country but one of my favourite memories of these holidays is having my dad read The Hobbit to myself and my brother as we went to bed.


Number Two - Norfolk 1998
I don't have a huge amount of memories from when I was a child. It's kind of as if some terrible event happened that I'm blocking out but I know that isn't true (well I think I know it isn't true). My favourite memories of growing up were the new years. Every year after Christmas my family would travel to Norfolk with two others and we would have the most amazing breaks.

What really sticks in my mind about the whole thing was the tradition of it all. It obviously took a lot of work from all of the parents to keep it going but to me it just seemed to happen ever year and I would get to have fun with other kids and parents without any stress or hassle. It was my first experience of just enjoying something without having to fear losing it.

The most important thing about those holidays is that it's where I realised what I wanted from my friendships and my life. My parents had these amazingly close bonds to people that had been built over time and so much of what I've done since has been in the hope of one day having equally strong bonds and spending new years with old friends and our children, just having fun and not worrying about losing it.


Number One - Devon 2010
Devon 2008 was incredible but Devon 2010 was the realisation of a dream I'd envisioned since I was a boy. You just read about the formation of that dream but when a slightly different group of us went away for a week last year I found all those things I'd wanted. It was the most relaxed and enjoyable week I've ever had. There was no drama and no arguments. Everyone got along and I loved every single day we spent there (even the one I spent cleaning up the results of an horrendously drunk night).

Devon Crew 2010, minus Rosanna due to early leaving.

One highlight was a day spent at a place called The Big Sheep which we had driven past and ignored every year to the dismay of Champagne. There were lots of cute animals and things that I probably should have found more interesting, but the awesome outside laser tag thing was the main surprise. The whole week was so great because it wasn't about creating friendships or starting traditions. We had the friendships and the traditions sorted already and it was time to just enjoy them.

A good game of Shoot the Greek.

That week made a dream come true decades before I expected it to and set a benchmark for all other holidays I'll go on in the future. For awhile I even worried that other holidays would be found wanting in comparison to this one but the fact that I'm this excited about leaving on Sunday lets me know that even something as great as this holiday can be topped.


An honourably mention goes to the awesome weekend at Alton Towers for Brian's birthday. I thought two nights wasn't really enough to count as a holiday but it really was a great way to end an incredible year.


So I'll be gone for a few weeks now, but I'll try to have something interesting to say when I get back. Bye.

Not Quite My Favourite Post Secret of the Week

Unfortunately there wasn't anything I connected with on a particularly personal level this week on Post Secret so instead I got thinking about how odd it would've been if the person who sent in the secret I wrote about last week was one of the people who viewed the blog. I would love to know if I interpreted it in the right way and if not, what they thought of what I said.

But anyway, here's a couple of funny pictures...

I wish I could say I made these but I didn't. They're from the internet. There are a lot of them out there, Post Secrets that have been messed with (or improved) and these are two of my favourites. They show one of my most feverish beliefs, that everything should be mocked. No matter how much you may care about or enjoy something, never forget the funny side of it because that's when you disappear into arrogance and pretentiousness. Also, I do still think about how awesome Arrested Development was.

So yeah, short blog today. Blame the people who sent in less interesting secrets (unless you're one of those people, in which case I apologise profusely). The next one I put up will be my last before a few lovely weeks away in France with my friends, so it will be a Top 5 Holidays.