Theatre

A winning flush of pure hilarity is what makes Samuel West’s revival of Patrick Marber’s blokeish debut irresistible. Comedy and tension are the strongest suits in West’s production and in Marber’s script, which deals in the fraught relationships of a bunch of poker pals: restaurant-owner Stephen; his long-time chef and waiters; and his reckless teenage son. Their relationships are the highest stakes in their exorbitant poker game which, for the most part, is a pacy and convincing dramatic metaphor for their unequal friendship. Their dim-witted optimism, one-upmanship, and comic-bluffing are very much in the sharp edges of Marber’s script, but it’s a pleasure to see deeply worked character acting revealing their heartfelt hopes and disappointments as well.

Short scenes are split very cleanly between a raised kitchen, where Ross Boatman’s husky chef, Sweeney, and Jay Simpson’s cockney cock of the walk waiter, Frankie, glug filched plonk and tussle over the polished surfaces. A split-scene row which alternates between them, and father and son Stephen and Carl in the restaurant downstage, does almost verge on EastEnders. But despite being pumped up with thumping beats and machismo, West’s production  rarely over-plays its hand.

Stephen Wight, as the ever-hapless ever-hopeful young waiter Mugsy, is the comic main course: lines like ‘I shall rise from the ashes like the proverbial dodo’ become sublime when delivered with such sincere wideboy pathos. Malcolm Sinclair keeps Stephen’s intriguingly mordant mask up until the final showdown with his son Carl, and the hard-bitten pro he owes four grand to. Sinclair’s subtle revelation of regretful self-knowledge comes just at the right time to compensate for the odd forced comparison in the finale (‘Bit like aces, kids, you fall in love with them’, commiserates the gambling pro clunkily). And so what if the ending feels a bit too much like a house of cards? There’s no shame in pushing a metaphor too far…