Review: Dealer's Choice (Donmar Warehouse)

Review by Daz Gale

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Tim Sheader’s inaugural season at the Donmar Warehouse has been nothing short of spectacular, with acclaimed productions of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet Of 1812 and The Fear Of 13 setting the bar high for his tenure as Artistic Director. His inaugural season continues with a revival of Patrick Marber’s Dealer’s Choice. Would this production keep up his winning streak or should he have quit while he was ahead?

First performed in 1995, Dealer’s Choice is set on a Sunday night in a failing London restaurant where owner Stephen enjoys a weekly poker game with members of his staff and his son. On this occasion, a stranger has come to play - with everyone having their own motives to win and the risk of everything on the line, the stakes have never been higher.

Though Patrick Marber has made some revisions to the play and reinstated some lines that were cut from the original production, the action remains set in the 1990s where the sight of a mobile phone is not a common occurrence and has even been banned from Stephen’s restaurant. Marber’s writing is exquisite throughout, always compelling, peppered with humour while building the tension in a play that is very much in two distincthalves.

Act One of Dealer’s Choice sets up the stakes, introducing the characters and the reasons they like to take part in this weekly game. Some do it for fun while others take it far more seriously than others with the risk of one bad hand having catastrophic events on their already delicate lives. The tension continues to build throughout this first Act until it is time for the game itself.

Where Act One flits between the front of the restaurant and the kitchen, Act Two moves the action downstairs to the poker room, keeping the action solely focused on the table and the six men surrounding it. The tension that has been built throughout that first Act pays off here, threatening to explode at any moment in action that had me on the edge of my seat and completely captivated consistently.

Marber’s writing subtly plants the seeds of what is going to happen so that, as an audience member you know exactly why each of these six men is playing this game. Though some know more than others about the motives at that table, you are left to keep guessing, never quite knowing what is going to happen next and who is going to come out on top. As in the game itself, Marber fills his writing with bluffs but never misses, winning hand after hand with his thrilling writing.

Matthew Dunster takes the tension of Marber’s writing and amplifies it through faultless choices. As the comedy prevalent in Act One ebbs away in the darker second Act, Dunster proves his talents as a director, with a revolve making full use of the Donmar’s space to showcase each of the six players to various sections of the audience. The intricacy of Moi Tran’s design has a seemingly fully working kitchen in the beginning only to give way to a stunning transformation for Act Two - the Donmar have form for these huge transformations but it has been a while since I have seen a production there do this - the payoff was certainly worth it, with Sally Ferguson’s lighting plunging the theatre into darkness repeatedly throughout the game, deliberately giving an uncomfortable sense reflecting the players.

Daniel Lapaine gives a compelling turn as Stephen, seemingly keeping everything together at the centre of the story in a relatively slow-burning performance that ultimately sees him holding all the cards. His character is commanding, and so too is his performance, with Brendan Coyle proving a fine adversary to him as the initially mysterious and fairly threatening Ash. The contrasts in their performances proves a thrilling dynamic throughout, with Lapaine’s more exaggerated nature and Coyle’s less-is-more approach joyous to witness.

Kasper Hilton-Hille gives a fantastic turn as Stephen’s son, Carl, while Alfie Allen and Theo Barklem-Biggs prove an outstanding double act as Frankie and Sweeney, dominating the early portion of the play but taking a back seat as the action progresses in characters that prove not quite as fleshed out as the others. The cast is completed by Hammad Animashaun in the standout performance as Mugsy. Larger-than-life and largely comedic, he lights up the stage with his every appearance. Though the role is light-hearted for the most part, elements of darkness creep in to the story with Mugsy’s own addiction to the game giving Animashaun plenty to work with in a sensational performance.

I keep coming back to the word “tension” and for good reason. Many a play tries to create that believable tension that almost makes you forget you are watching a piece of theatre and this isn’t real life. Few plays manage it as successfully and effortlessly as Dealer’s Choice. Thrilling and compelling, I never knew where the play was going to go and who was going to go out on top. Usually when reviewing a show, I like to keep a poker face so nobody knows what way I’m going to go. However, when a production is as good as this, I think it would have been fairly easy to clock my tell. With stunning writing, direction, and performances from an exceptional cast, this really was a full house in a production I can only describe as ace.

Dealer’s Choice plays at Donmar Warehouse until 7th June. Tickets from www.donmarwarehouse.co.uk

Photos by Helen Murray