A new production opened at the Old Joint Stock Theatre in Birmingham by ‘Something and Nothing’ theatre company and I for one would recommend it highly. A piece of new writing with a talented cast directed with a real eye for humour and style by Jenny Stephens, the Dinner Lady Man is the latest offering by Birmingham Writer and Actor Dan Hagley. It played to a sold out house on the afternoon I saw it and I feel that style-wise it built on their previous show ‘Patrick and Bernadine’.
The story of job loss and coping in austerity it had the finger on the pulse as it explored the prejudices of the staff when a man (played skillfully by Greg Hobbs) takes a job as a dinner lady in a secondary school to make ends meet.
Interesting characters and clever scene links made this an afternoon I was glad I had braved the rain.
We have contacted more schools for the Friday performance and have had 2 schools book and one school also book a follow up workshop; which we are very happy about.
From a personal point of view, with my writers’ head on; there are quite a few changes I want to make. Certain sections need to be less wordy and some thematic hints need to be made clearer in order that everyone can make sense of the denoument. A really really useful day which has got us all fired up.
