I was intrigued when I was asked to review this show. A cardboard kitchen? I went along hoping for something interesting and new. However I'm sorry to say I left rather deflated.
The show is on at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre as part of the Camden Fringe Festival. The theatre is above the Lion and Unicorn Pub, a lovely modern pub on the corner of a quiet residential street. Away from the main hustle and bustle of Camden. It was so relaxing I was glad I had time to take in the pubs atmosphere before the show. Not to mention it has a lovely little pub garden. anyway, the theatre itself is like the majority of pub theatres in London. Upstairs and small. It was also surprisingly warm.
I sat three rows from the front and realised something annoying. The seating is all on the same level. Well some seats further back are raised by maybe two inch but not enough to make any difference. This means you struggle to see the stage, which is just part of the floor. I knew this would likely be a problem, but I don't know the show so I might have been wrong. I wasn't. She sat on the floor for what felt like half the show. I dread to think of the poor people sat at the back of the audience. What exactly could they see? probably the head of the person in front of them and some disembodied voice complaining about the husband she left in Singapore.
Varshini Pichemuthu, a recent graduate from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama with a masters in Applied Theatre, was the actress in this show. She has a wonderful voice, so I was looking forward to listening to it for an hour or so. I was unfortunately disappointed however with her overall performance. Towards the end, as the show was progressing, she seemed to relax but this was certainly not the case at the. She had been very robotic and there was nothing naturalistic about her performance. I couldn't believe a single part of it. I also feel the show was maybe half an hour too long. There was a lot of filler. going over the same material multiple times, or using the same 'gag' such as trying to put the cardboard kitchen together.
Maybe the issues I had with the show were with the writing rather than the performance, but either way I felt it was just far too long. The story was there, but not very developed and this didn't help in keeping my concentration. It just dint go anywhere. Its always a bad sign when I keep looking at my watch. the director has called it a "really relatable story around a space in our lives that we don’t often think about." Now I tend to think about my kitchen a lot. Its the heart of the home. when there are gatherings its where much of the time gets spent. It needs to be practical but also be friendly and inviting. This made the story totally unrelatable. I still don't understand why she was sent a cardboards kitchen. How's that going to make her feel any better or make her want to spend more time in the kitchen. I just don't get it.
I'm sorry to say I was left disappointed. I can see it has potential, but it really needs to have some drastic work done to it.
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