Patrick Marber’s reputation as a playwright was sealed with 1997’s Closer, but wowee his debut Dealer’s Choice is good.
‘1995’ screams a giant projection at the start of Matthew Dunster’s production. It’s a fun gesture but it does not foreshadow a nostalgia fest. It’s actually a remarkably prescient play - a mobile phone is showcased prominently and there’s a whole bit in it about the gentrification of Bow. One running joke about how Hammed Animashaun’s hapless Mugsy wants to turn a disused public toilet into a restaurant sent chills down my spine (I live in Beckenham where we have literally turned the old public loos into a cafe).
Above all, it is a play about men, under pressure, playing poker. If anything truly does date it to its era it’s that the fizz and crackle of Marber’s lads-only dialogue recalls the Brit gangster films of the time (although it does actually predate most of them).
Regardless, it’s a lean and thrilling beast, that centres on a group of blokes who work in the restaurant in which the after hours poker games are played. The first half is all set up, as we’re introduced to the ensemble. Alfie Allen – brother to Dunster’s regular muse Lily – was kind of billed as the star, but really the show belongs to Animishawn’s ebullient Mugsy. His toilet-centric dreams are mocked by all and sundry, but really he’s the only one who feels like he might be able to move on from the gambling. At the start of the story Theo Barklem-Biggs’s deadpan chef Sweeney protests that no, he’s not going to play a late night poker game hours before being granted a visit with his daughter; it’s obvious what will happen. Posh restaurant owner Stephen (Daniel Lapaine) needs the game for myriad reasons – to vent his demons, to validate his uninspiring eatery, to give him an excuse to see his son Carl (Kasper Hilton-Hille). Allen’s fey, rootless Frankie says he wants to move to Vegas and become a professional gambler, but is that really escaping this room or doubling down on it? And Carl has fallen into gambling debt, trying to piggy back on Mugsy’s toilet scheme to con a couple of grand out of his dad; now the man he owes money to – Brendan Coyle’s Ash – has come to collect.
The first half of Marber’s script sets it all up beautifully. Then, following what I can only describe as a supremely ostentatious change in Moi Tran’s set that moves us from restaurant to basement with maximum pizzazz, it’s time for the games.
Nobody depicts blokes on stage quite like Dunster, who is pretty much the Guy Ritchie of theatre directors. It can sometimes cause problems with subtler fare, but he’s in his element with this grimy thriller, getting the best out of his cast for what is, ultimately, an enjoyable story of terrible male desperation.
We feel the stakes of the games, but we also recognise the hopelessness of most of these men’s situations - nothing is going to free them from the cages they’ve built for themselves. But that’s why Animishawn’s Mugsy is so delightful. He’s an idiot, but he’s a beautiful idiot, a big happy puppy with big (well, toilet-sized) dreams who sails through life unfettered by the mind-forged manacles that hold the others back. Later on, Stephen surreptitiously does him a massive favour, and you sense that it’s not out of pity for Muggsy, but because there’s still hope for him.
