Slice @ Oran Mor

A comedy writer for over twenty years, Mel Giedroyc is best known for her double act with Sue Perkins, as well as successful shows on Radio 4. Slice marks not only the arrival of her debut play, but also its world premiere at Oràn Mór.

The bedroom farce seems dead these days, making way for the kitchen farce (Formica farce?) It is a formula that mostly works well through recognisable archetypes in a domestic setting: here, Victoria (a terrific Leslie Hart) the baby of the group is her dying mother’s carer, dementedly trying like the Anti-Delia to bake her approval before full meltdown; middle sis Charlotte (played by Louise Ludgate) is the smug, prissy Mum with all the answers to the questions nobody asked and Madeleine (Fletcher Mathers) the eldest tarty one who decamped to the US but back at Victoria’s behest.

Slice is, on the whole, more Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? than Desperate Housewives, although too polite when it should really bite a bit harder... some of the innuendo is a tad obvious – 'filling', 'creaming', etc...
Not that it is badly written – far from it. Mathers has a ball as LA-based bitch Madeleine, tasting the acid put-downs on her tongue as if they are strawberry bon-bons – and she gets the best lines: “Mom’s not on stand-by. You can’t point the remote control at her,” she hisses to Victoria, “and expect her to work!”

Seething resentment, family dysfunction and a talking cake that sounds like Molly Weir – nice lunchtime ingredients. [Missy Lorelai]