The Waiting Room

I was invited to see the Waiting Room by What’s It All About Productions on Wednesday 13th October 2015 at the Courtyard. The premise of this show is that 3 strangers have been sent a letter to come to a meeting. All they know is that the senders of this letter knows their name and date of birth, they have no idea what the meeting is for and why they are there. They are shown to a waiting room and simply told to wait until they are ready to be seen.

The set itself was simple, 3 chairs and a table, 2 doors, one of which remained locked throughout the show and was there to signify where the people they had come to see were situated and the other the main entrance and exit to the waiting room.
The 3 strangers are Jeremy, played by Les Cochrane, Ali, played by Rachel Callaghan and Mark played by Dean Bartholomew. The characters are all very different, Jeremy pompous, Ali chatty and inquisitive and Mark slightly dim and easily amused and the writing allows these different character traits to come through very easily. All 3 actors suited their rolls although my favourite was the way Les seemed to embrace the grumpy Jeremy and had the eye rolling down to a T. The supporting actors were slightly weaker. When the builder, played by Jacob Sarfas, came to fix the door he was leaning on the part of the set that supported the door and would have been where the wall should have been. He also seemed to struggle with trying to keep the door closed whilst pretending he was unable to open it. This simply highlighted the inefficiencies with set which it needn’t have done.

I wasn’t convinced by the play as a whole either. The premise is an interesting one and the characters within the play well written but I was left with many unresolved questions. For a play that is described as a comedy there were very little laugh out loud moments. It also was a bit awkward when they made subtle references to the fact that they were in fact performing, i.e. a hint about if audiences enjoy plays they spread the word on facebook, or not mentioning the Scottish play by name unless you are on stage, all with knowing look sot the audience. This seems to jar with the rest of the piece which was played without breaking the 4th wall at all.

In my opinion the Waiting Room could do with some trimming and tightening and take the form of quite a nice little one act play.

The Waiting Room is on until Sunday the 18th October and tickets can be purchased here.