Pub Quiz
April 23, 2008
Pub Quiz
Venue: Northern Stage
Date Reviewed: 23rd April, 2008
New Writing North presents the new play Pub Quiz by Carina Rodney, which is currently on a sellout tour.
The title sums up the play very clearly, it is set over one evening at a pub quiz, where the jack pot has reached almost seven hundred pounds. Several of the actors are already on stage inside the “Magpie” pub as the audience take their seats.
Quickly we are introduced to a collection of characters that include Peter (Micky Cochrane), the plumber and his “bit on the side” Kathleen (Vicky Elliott), who are on opposing teams. Their respective friends and loner Lewis (James Cunningham), who always sits by himself. When stranger Asram (Joseph Garton) arrives, telling everyone he is there to win, he soon finds he has no friends in the pub.
There are three main strands of plot carrying the play along, the relationship between Kathleen and Peter, Peters third team member not showing up which results in loner Lewis joining his team and Geoff (Joe Caffrey), the publican who arranges the quiz every week, who has a marriage that appears to be in free fall.
While there is a lot of humour in the play, the pacing of the first act results in the story and comedy being very uneven, it feels as if everything almost grinds to a halt before it picking up another thread and off we go again. It is very off putting but this does not affect the second half, which is by far the stronger of the two.
After the intermission the action centres on the quiz itself, until the last ten minutes when the emphasis changes to take a moral stance, which jars against the rest of the play. At times the action stops completely and the cast act out a familiar TV quiz show, including the Weakest Link, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and University Challenge, but these segments usually assist the plot move along and do not get in the way of the story.
There is no doubting that Pub Quiz is entertaining and deserves the packed audiences but director Psyche Stott could have made so much more of the first half.
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