REVIEW: WORST WEDDING EVER
SALISBURY PLAYHOUSE
With a wedding band playing in the theatre foyer, and a display of embarrassing wedding photographs on stage, the audience is already primed for this hugely enjoyable revival of a modern classic.
Brilliantly written by Dorset dramatist Chris Chibnall (TV’s Broadchurch ), and creatively directed by Gareth Machin, this is a compelling comedy drama that makes you laugh, feel, and think.
Young couple Scott and Rachel are planning their wedding – she’d like a Hawaiian beach fantasy, he’d prefer a canal barge and a pub. But the bride’s mother has other ideas . . .
“Austerity Britain” decrees that the average wedding cost of £25,000 is impossible, so the family decides on a back garden marquee, a second-hand wedding dress, the local pub band, and a couple of hired Portaloos.
The atmospheric stage set – as always with Salisbury Playhouse – is wonderfully designed and constructed. The band singer appears through a trapdoor in the lawn, the inebriated chief bridesmaid gets trapped in a collapsing Portaloo, and the vicar is savaged by the family’s drugged dogs Frodo and Gandalf in the garden shed.
Ten superb actors deliver the entertaining storyline; Derek Frood hilarious as the demented father, Julia Hills compelling as the meddling mother, and Elizabeth Cadwallader mesmeric as the high-heeled flirty sister.
Humour ranges from brilliant one-liners, through cartoonish farce, to laugh-out-loud hysterical situation comedy. Thought-provoking undertones include family secrets, cancer, and house repossession.
Runs until February 25, matinees Thursdays and Saturdays.
Brendan McCusker
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