Mastress of Ceremonies

The premise (and it’s a good one) is that Nicole and Alex’s wedding is a litany of disasters, from the church ceremony (at which two flower girls threw up - one on the bride) to the reception.  Michelle (Heather Valentine), dressed in a truly awful green bridesmaid’s dress, gamely steps in - in the absence of anyone else - but certainly not Nicole’s first choice - to be ‘Mastress of Ceremonies’. 

We are the wedding guests, seated at our little tables.  Michelle, spurred on by duty (someone’s gotta do it) or maybe malice, and certainly many glasses of wine, has the schedule thingy listing all the traditional steps and she’s going to get through it all. No matter what.  

We soon figure that there is malice or at the least mischief, as Michelle proceeds to make ribald jokes, to be very indiscreet about and to some of the guests, revealing embarrassing secrets, and flirting with a good-looking barrister.  All interspersed with little barbs of anger, satire, and misery.  The backstory comes out: the bride, Nicole, was Michelle’s bestie, and the groom, Alex, was Michelle’s boyfriend.  So, we know some of where Michelle’s coming from…

Anyway… on with the schedule.  Letters from people who sadly couldn’t be there, including Alex’s loutish, loser twin brother and a salacious French grandmother - or, if you prefer (and Michelle does), Grand mère.  As Michelle gets drunker and drunker, even briefly falling flat on her face, her rage, disillusionment, and lonely unhappiness become plain - no more jokes, just a howl - or a rant - of pain.

We somehow feel that as Michelle gets more and more drunk - and more angry and miserable - that her spiel will build and develop and get to where it does finally get to: the sad and tearful reveal of how she really feels.  But on the way, the jokes and sarcastic asides are a bit scattergun and, while funny per se, they’re left dangling without context.  They’re not motivated by Michelle’s real reason for seizing the microphone to become ‘Mastress of Ceremonies.  There’s a bit too much random, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if…?’  Jokes for their own sake.  Her excursion into reading the letter from Grand mère is a case in point.  Michelle goes for type: she adopts a cod accent and mimes smoking.  Why?  This goes on way too long - but then stops when it’s getting interestingly filthy.  Grand mère clearly has more fun than sad sack Michelle.

Heather Valentine is an attractive, trained, and skilled performer, but her text here is unfortunately rather unfocussed, and her comic timing is weakened by very long pauses.  As remarked, good concept, but Heather Valentine needs a better text.

Michael Brindley