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The Third Condiment Review |
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Written by Joe Reed
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 The stage, as it appears before the start of The Third Condiment, gives audiences a good idea of what to expect. Three bean bag chairs rest on the floor while behind them on a small ikea table sit an iPod and speaker system.
The play, by Nottingham based group Ankle Productions, sets itself up a a modern comedy, beginning with a studenty debate about the differing pronunciation of ‘garage’ when referring to the music type and the car storage location.
The plot concerns Dave a maverick musician and laddish savant, who has developed “the third condiment”, a garnish different to both salt and pepper, from charred yam flesh.
The enormous profitability of such a product almost immediately pits Dave and his friends into a debate between untrammelled capitalism and fair trade. When they are introduced to Murdoch-a-like tycoon Rubric Hemingway and his daughters things get all the more complex.
The production has some funny moments but many of the jokes have less milage than the authors seem to realise. Further, the desire to be on trend and contemporary seems to run roughshod over all other elements of the play. After an hour and a bit of iphoning this, and facebooking that, you start to feel like you’ve been beaten repeatedly with a copy of Dazed and Confused.
There are some good performances here. Sam Morris as Dave is always well timed and engaging, even if his twee Welsh eccentric character (seemingly a cross between Mark Watson and Rob Brydon) starts to grate in time, and the rest of the cast deliver assured performances.
There's no escaping though, that this is a thin show, with neither the comedy or insight to fill an hour. The debate about fair trade is far less substantial than the producers seem to think it is, and the final conclusion of the play was spotted galloping towards us five minutes in.
If not without charm, the Third Condiment is just a little wearing.
- The Third Condiment
- Zoo Venues
- August 3rd - 25th
- 21:05
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