LondonTheatre1

London Theatre: Tickets | Reviews | News | West End | UK Touring Productions

All Shows Booking Now
  • Home
  • Top Selling Shows
    • Musicals
    • Plays
      • A Christmas Carol
      • Harry Potter and the Cursed Child
      • The Mousetrap
      • The Woman in Black
      • Witness for the Prosecution
    • Back To The Future
    • Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club
    • Dirty Dancing
    • Frozen The Musical
    • Heathers
    • Jersey Boys
    • Les Misérables
    • Mamma Mia
    • Matilda the Musical
    • Moulin Rouge
    • Pretty Woman the Musical
    • The Book of Mormon
    • The Lion King
    • The Phantom of the Opera
    • Tina the Musical
    • Wicked
    • London Theatres
      • Seating Plans
      • Adelphi Theatre
      • Aldwych Theatre
      • Ambassadors Theatre
      • Apollo Theatre
      • Apollo Victoria Theatre
      • Cambridge Theatre
      • Criterion Theatre
      • Dominion Theatre
      • Duchess Theatre
      • Duke of York’s Theatre
      • Fortune Theatre
      • Garrick Theatre
      • Gielgud Theatre
      • Gillian Lynne Theatre
      • Harold Pinter Theatre
      • His Majesty’s Theatre
      • Lyceum Theatre
      • Lyric Theatre
      • New Wimbledon Theatre
      • New Wimbledon Theatre Studio
      • Noel Coward Theatre
      • Novello Theatre
      • Old Vic Theatre
      • Palace Theatre
      • Palladium
      • Phoenix Theatre
      • Piccadilly Theatre
      • Playhouse Theatre
      • Prince Edward Theatre
      • Prince of Wales Theatre
      • Richmond Theatre
      • Savoy Theatre
      • Shaftesbury Theatre
      • Sondheim Theatre
      • St Martin’s Theatre
      • Trafalgar Theatre
      • Vaudeville Theatre
      • Victoria Palace Theatre
      • Wyndham’s Theatre
  • News
    • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • UK Shows
    • Alexandra Theatre
    • Aylesbury Waterside Theatre
    • Brighton Theatre Royal
    • Bristol Hippodrome
      • Bristol Theatre Seating Plan
    • Edinburgh Playhouse
    • Glasgow Theatre Royal
    • Grand Opera House York
    • King’s Theatre Glasgow
    • Kit Kat Club London
    • Leas Cliff Hall
    • Liverpool Empire
    • Manchester Opera House
    • Manchester Palace Theatre
    • Milton Keynes Theatre
    • New Theatre Oxford
    • New Victoria Theatre Woking
    • New Wimbledon Theatre
    • New Wimbledon Theatre Studio
    • Princess Theatre Torquay
    • Regent Theatre Stoke
    • Rhoda McGaw Theatre
    • Richmond Theatre
    • Stockton Globe
    • Sunderland Empire
    • Swansea Arena
    • Victoria Hall Hanley Stoke
  • Newsletter
  • West End
  • Dancewear
Home » Reviews » Happy Hour at Gatehouse Theatre

Happy Hour at Gatehouse Theatre

May 19, 2023 Last updated: May 19, 2023 9:37 pm By Alan Franks Leave a Comment

To borrow from Princess Diana’s remark about there being “three of us” in her relationship with Prince Charles, there’s a similarly odd number of participants in the pairing of George and Jacqui in Andy Walker’s Happy Hour at the Gatehouse Theatre.

Happy Hour. Credit Ross Kernahan.
Happy Hour. Credit Ross Kernahan.

This third party is less human than diabolical, being the demon drink. No half measures here since it is plain from the off that the two are as dependent on the booze as they are on each other. When they don’t have it, they’re craving it. When they then give it house-space in their brains and bellies and all points south, they are so taken over by its effects that they cannot offer each other a true version of themselves.

This self-mutation hardens into nothing less than self-mutilation, with drink hanging in there and playing merry hell with their identities. In this respect, the knowingly misnamed Happy Hour is a direct descendant of Edward Albee’s classic portrayal of a self-liquidating couple, George and Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

You – the audience – are not the only ones to balk at the supposedly funny side of the pair’s mood-altered altercations and self-piteous onsets of remorse for another night – make that nights-plural – on the tiles. For Jacqui has a daughter, Rosie, and a grandchild, neither of whom she deserves on account of her juiced-up self-obsession and her unlovely lurches between staged contrition and paralyticism. (If there isn’t such a word, there jolly well should be, though George and Jacqui are in no state to own it, let alone pronounce it.)

Deftly directed by Lesley Manning, the couple’s life is a continuing round (as in “Mine’s a large one”) of topping-up, going over that top, comedowns and hangovers, ludicrous plans not worth the name, half-arsed pledges of abstinence and so on. She does have a job, but then loses it. No prizes for guessing why. George’s means are not entirely transparent, though his principal skills lie in the literal and figurative areas of sponging.

Read  We Need New Names at Brixton House

Whenever the initials AA crop up in the ranting – the ones that don’t stand for Automobile Association – they mostly draw contemptuous snorts on the grounds of that organisation’s supposedly sinister intents. When it comes to instilling nameless fear, nothing beats the unknown.

How did/does Rosie manage to blossom, like her name, into effective adulthood and motherhood? If she’s in search of a father figure, her own mother’s lover/loather George is mercifully absent from the shortlist. As a visitor to the vicious triangle of Jacqui, George and Grog, it’s she who brings a welcome whiff of adulthood to the proceedings. In this respect her role is rather that of a non-comedic Saffie, Edina’s daughter in Absolutely Fabulous.

One interpretation of Rosie’s ever-so-welcome levelheadedness is that she has no wish to follow down her mother’s chaotic and maybe lethal road. Aversion therapy in action.

I’ve no idea how or where the playwright Andy Walker researched his material, but his handling of drink’s spiked promise does bear the flavour of authenticity.

So too do Stacha Hicks’s Jacqui and Derek Murphy’s George, both at war with the legal drug which, down the wrong throats, can wreak as much havoc as the Class A stuff. She hardly deserves her Rosie – played with strength and tenderness by Ellie Philpott – but the young woman’s presence, and indeed future are crucial to a positive reading since it is she who is not only calling time on her mother, but cradling the time to come.

4 stars

Review by Alan Franks

Jacqui has a problem: herself. She’s controlled by an internal demon named George. George is everything Jacqui would like to be: funny, attractive, sociable. But George’s purpose is tempting Jacqui to drink alcohol. Jacqui doesn’t need much tempting. And drinking is killing her.

Happy Hour
May 16th – 28th
1h45m (with interval)
https://www.upstairsatthegatehouse.com/

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Maybe of Interest?

  • Six at Princess Theatre, Torquay Six at Princess Theatre, Torquay £31.50
  • Nicky Clarke London Salon Experience - Advanced Director
    Nicky Clarke London Salon Experience - Advanced Director
    £270.00
  • Bread and Circuses at Studio at New Wimbledon Theatre Bread and Circuses at Studio at New Wimbledon Theatre £11.00
  • Northern Live - Do I Love You at Theatre Royal Glasgow Northern Live - Do I Love You at Theatre Royal Glasgow £13.00
  • Walk Right Back - The Everly Brothers Story at Theatre Royal Brighton Walk Right Back - The Everly Brothers Story at Theatre Royal Brighton £13.00
  • 42nd Street at Bristol Hippodrome 42nd Street at Bristol Hippodrome £13.00
  • Calling Planet Earth at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre Calling Planet Earth at Aylesbury Waterside Theatre £13.00
  • The Elvis Tribute Artist World Tour at Stockton Globe The Elvis Tribute Artist World Tour at Stockton Globe £27.00
  • A Country Night in Nashville at Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone A Country Night in Nashville at Leas Cliff Hall, Folkestone £25.00
  • Michael McIntyre: MACNIFICENT at Bristol Hippodrome Michael McIntyre: MACNIFICENT at Bristol Hippodrome £40.72
  • London Vegan Food Tour for Two
    London Vegan Food Tour for Two
    £79.00
Copyright www.LondonTheatre1.com
By using our website you’re confirming that you’re happy to accept our use of cookies.
Privacy Policy & Cookies - Advertising - About Us - Newsletter - Contact Us