Food Chain ( Archived )

Reviews

Newspaper Reviews

Pictured: Paul Ritter, Linda Robson ,Claire Rushbrook, Calum Callaghan

Photography by Mark Douet

Designer: Ti Green, Lighting Designer: Johanna Town, Sound Designer: Emma Laxton.

Cast: Calum Callaghan, Sid Mitchell, Linda Robson, Claire Rushbrook, Paul Ritter, Justin Salinger.

Evening Standard – 24 June

I have to admit to a bit of a soft spot for playwright Mick Mahoney. Sacred Heart, his 1999 debut piece for the Royal Court, was the first play I watched in a professional capacity. In the intervening years he has buffed and polished his dialogue in an encouraging manner. In Sacred Heart, the characters spent much time telling each other things they ought to have known already/ in Food chain, there is simply no time for such superfluity.

The taut exchanges give us an immediate grasp of both location and situation. Tony, a plasterer-turned-cabbie, is a north London boy made good by skyrocketing property prices. By staying in his family home in Angel, hes gone up immeasurably in the world and is now something of an investor. Hes even the father of two obnoxious teenage actor-presenter wannabes, and self-appointed benefactor of buxom single mum Emma. Trouble is, Tony measures happiness by what is on his wrist or up his nose, rather than whats in his heart.

This is a peach of a role, and Paul Ritter does it full justice with a nervy, cocky, living-on-its-wits turn. He is well supported by Linda Robson, who has made a rare foray away from the small screen buy brought with her that trademark pound puppy expression and nails-down-a-blackboard voice as his wife Carol, a woman who didnt think that her marriage vows would include having to adapt to a fretful nouveau riche lifestyle. However, in Anna Mackmins energetic production, it is Justin Salinger, as Emmas estranged partner Nat, who steals the honours, with a commendably still performance in the eye of the unfolding domestic maelstrom.

The Guardian 24 June

Mick Mahoneys new play is a short, sharp satire on crass materialism: on a world where you are what you own andwhere possession is nine-tenths of the folklore.

You can see what Mahoney is driving at: that materialism is no substitiute for morality. And in Toney he creates a vivid picture of a sad monster who has succumbed to the ersatz dreams of a go-getting society.

Tony believes that as long as you wear the right writs-watch or know the best Thai restaurant in London or have a son and daughter who are mini TV-celebrities, then the gods will always protect you. And what Mahoney shows, with some sharpness, is the shattering of Tonys hubristic belief that the family that preys together stays together.its put across with punishing vigour in Anna Mackmins Theatre Upstairs production. Paul Ritter has exactly the right mouthy attack as the cabbie who has all the knowledge but little wisdom and there is good work from Claire Rushbrook as the quietly piss-taking Emma and from Justin Salinger as the reformed addict who found God in Bournemouth.

The Independent 26 June

The cast of Anna Mackmins funny, forceful production in the Theatre Upstairs deliver the quick-fire dialogue with terrific flair.

Financial Times 25 June

Carol: Nice being nic, innit? But Mick Mahoneys Food Chain is not a nice play. It occurs, in one unbroken scene, in the Islington home of Tony and Carol; their Islington is no haven ofupper-middle-class Blairites. Tony grew up here and met Carol when she was in the Packington estate nearby; he drives a cab, and deals in property, equipment whatever will support their lifestyle.

They and their children are obsessed by image: their unseen daughter Alice is a pop host on daytime TV, their mid-teens son Jamie is getting acting jobs on various TV series, Tony is preoccupied by just how to wear the flashy wristwatch he spent £1700 on. When Carol hears of a TV director needing someone better-looking than Jamie, she comments on the director: Es no Ginola isself. Thats all one the one hand.

On the other, what? Food Chain is about values. Tony is competitive in attitude and virtually without any sense of responsibility. When his son Jamie is caught committing a school offence, Tonys reaction is to blame him just for getting caught, and his solution is to bribe another boy to take the rap. These lives are set against those of their guests Emma, her boy Billy, and her estranged husband Nat. Nat has been through drugs rehab. Carol has been bringing up Billy while starting to look for another man, and Billy shows plenty of adolescent confusion and anger. Gradually, though, when it comes to values beyond image and money, each of these three shows some kind of solidity.