Reviews
La Locandiera
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15 August 2010
Reviewing La Locandeira, a traditional eighteenth century Florentine dining experience, one feels as much a food critic as a theatre pundit. I’ll start with the food: it’s fine. Not top class, which is thrown into contrast by continual references by the cast (who inhabit the same restaurant) to how brilliant the innkeeper’s cooking is. The risotto is recommended.
Goldoni’s comedy is very much of its time, a comedy of sex, money and class in which a beautiful hostess draws her clientele into a rapidly unravelling love pentangle. The performances are solid, barring a few wobbling faux-Italian accents; and Damien O’Donnell gives a noteworthy comic turn.
The dinner theatre construct serves them: the over-the-top, contrived action would have dragged more without the diversion of dinner. But ultimately the production fails to provide either a consuming immersive experience or a fully realised drama, lodged somewhere between in a mildly diverting evening.
– Will Young
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