Appraisal

Office politics and corporate games are in full force in this one-act play from the award-winning writer, Tim Marriot. The senior manager Jo, played with a devious smile by Nicholas Collett, is going through the annual review process with Emily-Jo Davidson’s head of department Nicky. It’s a two-hander that needs only a straightforward set (desk, laptop, bottle of scotch in the bottom drawer) and two terrific actors to drive the story through its twists, turns and backtracks.

Collett is great as the old-school manager, relishing his power-trip over his stellar performer who stubbornly refuses to play by his rules. And Davidson is just brilliant opposite her reviewer: a woman who is prepared, defiant, and contemptuous of his assumed authority.

Marriott’s writing is intelligent and incisive, exposing the abuse of corporate efforts intended to address inequalities of age, sex and everything else that doesn’t matter to those who still cling to power. Yet it’s not overwrought, it builds and releases tension so wonderfully, then does it again in a different way. Despite being a play about an office performance review, it’s really quite funny. And it gives such depth and complexities to the two characters – it has enough ambiguity in the characterisations through most of the hour that it’s never quite certain which is the bad guy.

But it’s the two actors that carry this narrative superbly – and not just through their convincing delivery of dialogue, that sizzles and burns and fades so well, but in how they react to the other speaking. There is as much of the story in what isn’t said, in the expression on their faces, in how they position themselves relative to the other. Both Davidson and Collett are utterly captivating.

Mark Wickett

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