Review: Don't Make Tea, Soho Theatre - Funny and clever
01/04/2024
Don't Make Tea at the Soho Theatre is one of those plays that, if you wrote down all the elements, you'd think 'this isn't going to work' but somehow, on stage, it does.
It's the latest production from Birds of Paradise Theatre Company and is set in the flat of Chris (Gillian Dean), who has a degenerative disease, which means she's slowly going blind and has increasing levels of debilitating pain.
The Government has introduced a new assessment for eligibility for disability benefits, which is supposed to be fairer.
Chris' benefits have been frozen until she passes - or rather fails - her assessment because working is framed as the 'positive' outcome despite her level of disability or inability to work.
Ralph (Neil John Gibson), the assessor, arrives with recording equipment and a pulse monitor (to detect lies). It's a tricksy, ridiculous, definitely bureaucratic and sometimes invasive assessment.
Chris' frustrations begin to bubble up despite her best efforts to stay calm (and polite). The second half deals with the fallout of her frustrations in an increasingly surreal turn of events.
Don't Make Tea is an inclusive performance with captions, sign language and audio descriptions. However, these are cleverly incorporated into the story and are characters in their own right.
The audio description is delivered via an Alexa-style device called Able (Richard Conlon), which is designed to help Chris but is sometimes a little too helpful.
Sign language interpreter Francis (Emery Hunter) appears on the flat's TV screen, and while Chris doesn't need sign language, she likes the company Francis provides.
Both Able and Francis are vehicles for humour, working for and against Chris during the assessment and in the aftermath.
This a funny and clever play, with moments of delicious silliness and others that are almost Kafka-esque. It is also a play of drama with elements of a thriller.
But beneath it all, there is a more serious message about the nature of disability assessments and how they label and discriminate.
I'm giving it four stars.
🎥 Before Don't Make Tea opened, I talked to the Don't Make Tea director and BOP artistic director, Robert Softley Gale, about the play, disabled representation and the sort of theatre he most likes to watch. Watch the interview here on my YouTube channel.
Don't Make Tea, Soho Theatre
Written by Rob Drummond.
Directed by Robert Softley Gale.
Cast: Gillian Dean, Richard Conlon, Neil John Gibson, Nicola Chegwin and Emery Hunter.
Running time: 2 hours, including an interval.
Booking at the Soho Theatre until 6 April, then on a UK tour.
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Check out my YouTube channel for short video reviews and interviews with writers, directors and actors.