by Sam Hawcroft
It might be called Waitress, but this is one musical that serves up rather more than its sugary exterior initially suggests.
Funny, warm, occasionally rather raunchy and, when it needs to be, genuinely moving, the hit Broadway musical received a rapturous reception as it opened its Hull New Theatre run on Tuesday, September 1.
At the centre of it all is Jenna, played superbly by Emma Lucia, a waitress and gifted pie-maker at Joe’s Diner whose seemingly ordinary small-town life hides a much darker reality.
She is trapped in an unhappy and increasingly abusive marriage to the controlling Earl and dreams of escape, only for an unexpected pregnancy to make her feel more trapped than ever.
Her refuge is baking. Jenna invents pies to match whatever is happening in her life and these flights of imagination become a recurring visual and musical motif throughout the show, as ingredients, memories and emotions swirl together around her.
It is beautifully done – the ensemble appears almost from nowhere during these sequences, helped enormously by some exceptional lighting, and disappears just as effortlessly again. Indeed, the staging throughout is one of the production’s great strengths.
Joe’s Diner is the main backdrop but scenes move smoothly between there, Jenna’s home and the doctor’s surgery, among others, without ever disrupting the pace.
One particularly effective touch comes during the scenes between Jenna and Earl, when the stage curtains close in around them, narrowing the space almost like an old television screen and adding subtly to the oppressive atmosphere. When the world opens up again, so does the stage.
Lucia is outstanding as Jenna, combining a terrific voice with a performance that ensures the character never becomes overwhelmed by everything going on around her.
And there is quite a lot going on.
A visit to her new doctor, the awkward Dr Pomatter, played by Dan Partridge, develops in a direction neither of them quite intended, while Jenna pins her hopes of escape on entering a pie-making competition with a potentially life-changing prize.
Alongside her throughout are fellow waitresses Becky and Dawn, and it is the friendship between the three women that gives Waitress much of its heart.
Bernadette Bangura brings bags of attitude and warmth to the larger-than-life Becky, while Evelyn Hoskins is simply hilarious as the wonderfully kooky Dawn.
Hoskins’ comic timing is exceptional and she also has a superb voice – although one of the strengths of Waitress is that virtually everybody gets their moment in the spotlight.
Dawn’s tentative adventures in dating also introduce Mark Anderson’s spectacularly eccentric Ogie, whose arrival takes the comedy up another notch.
The humour becomes considerably more adult as the evening progresses, particularly either side of the interval, and anyone expecting an entirely wholesome tale about a woman baking pies may be in for something of a surprise.
There is strong language, sexual humour and some decidedly suggestive scenes – Hull New Theatre gives the production age guidance of 13-plus – but the more outrageous moments are balanced by a much darker thread running beneath them.
The American accents initially take a moment to tune into but it does not take long before Joe’s Diner feels like a place populated by people you know.
There is even the inevitable local reference. A line involving a list of places apparently crying out for pie shops – London, Paris and, yes, Hull – duly produced one of the biggest laughs of the night.
One notable absentee on opening night was Les Dennis, who had been billed to appear as Old Joe during the Hull run. Dan O’Brien, normally cast as Cal, stepped into the role, while Will Arundell took O’Brien’s usual part.
But this is very much an ensemble show rather than one dependent on a star name and the company barely puts a foot wrong.
Suffice to say that by the finale, the audience was completely won over. The individual bows brought huge cheers, particularly for Lucia, before the entire company brought the house to its feet.
Waitress runs at Hull New Theatre until Saturday, September 5.