Lotus Productions ‘Quiche’ has come to the Camden Fringe, and offers punters a sharp hour long play punctuated with hysterically funny lines and well placed poignancy. The audience were laughing loud and settling back comfortably for more every time.
Over the course of one night we see couple Jenny and John explore every facet of their love when their friends, Jo and Jake, pop round for some quiche. Alcohol, power plays, dissatisfaction and desire all do their work.
While the comedy is laugh a minute (with a higher ratio than that in places) the themes are very adult and intense. Is being in a couple the start or the end of your sexual identity, or both? How satisfied should we, or do we, feel in our lives, at work and at home, and slotting between other people?
The play moves along nicely, and the cast really gels together, all of the emotions, all of the gags: they fit perfectly, and the entire cast renders everything so well that the characters win you over, even where their actions perhaps shouldn’t.
Ella Turk-Thompson and Michael Williams admirably anchor the play with their independent yet intrinsically linked characters Jenny and John. Wherever the night takes us, we can see at least one, but often multiple, angles of their relationship bouncing alongside – whether nicely, nastily or comically.
Ellie Mason’s Jo and Frank McHugh’s Jake are wonderful creations. Ghastly, horrifying, then sad, both actors have to fill a lot of differently shaped spaces in the play, and they do so flawlessly. Jo trips between comically awful and crass and vulnerable. Jake has to be a sod, a formidable lover and a mate, and constantly pitches between friend and foe to the others in different ways.
Quiche is a fantastic little play with a very warm heart. You’re really rooting for Jenny and John, and so the comedy can really take you anywhere, hysterically, without you feeling mean for laughing at the highs and lows of their evening, love life and social skills.
Quiche is at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden until Sunday. Shows at 8:30
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