Dinner

 

The Dinner, written by Writers' Guild award winner Moira Buffini, plots an evening in which bitter socialite Paige crafts her guests' downfall with a series of conceptual meals. Each successive course is designed to provoke the foibles of her high-society company and, confronted with their own failings, they each unravel accordingly.

The guests begin to treat each other with exaggerated contempt long before the courses are served by the waiter (keep an eye on him). Sour remarks descend into farce, as sexual jealousy and damaged pride take their toll on this flawed group of upper-class stereotypes. It's a noisy and abrasive play, not aided by a script jammed with awkwardly-employed expletives and casual inflections of apoplectic rage. Given Buffini's decorated resume, this is surprising. The performances themselves are not strong.

Sparse characterisation and inconsistent comic timing render many of the characters difficult to relate to. However not all are risible. Alec de Winter's stoic turn as the watchful, silent steward is a steady presence that provides a vital counterpoint to the cacophony of sniped insults and screamed abuse that dominates the remainder of the proceedings.

The Dinner is essentially a heavy-handed glance at class and, although the play does reach a satisfyingly morbid conclusion, there really is very little else to recommend this. Indeed, the arrival of cockney van driver Mike brings the play to a new nadir of thematic clunkiness. Dramatic explorations of the British class system arguably reached their apotheosis with Mike Leigh's Abigiail's Party. This crass, artless performance adds very little to the mix.