4 STARS, June 12-17. There are three defining adjectives that sum up this production: god, sex and rock 'n' roll, says Claire Budhan
Waiting for God is out of this world funny and it will make a total believer out of you, even if you're a Stephen Fry level atheist. The play revolves around Diana (Nichol McAuliffe: Coronation Street & Surgical Spirit) a cantankerous former photographer, and Tom (Jeffrey Holland: Hi-De-Hi/ Dads Army) a relentlessly jovial ex-accountant, and their spontaneously cohesive companionship, set within a retirement village for the elderly.
Michael Aitkens – writer of the original 1990s BBC television sitcom – takes the notion of death, with all its sadness, and stares it right in the proverbial eye through all its unwittingly witty humour. This theme runs throughout the play with Act One seeing its main protagonist proclaiming "I’m a total Atheist... thank God" through to Act Two where we learn of the passing of poor old Roger (though sadly not through the process of old age as somewhat expected, but instead by a tumble off the back of a minibus after one of the care home's many unadventurous expeditions).
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Sex is also a topic that is not shied away from and it is very much treated the way George Bernard Shaw did laughter: "You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing". Or as Mark Twain once said, "Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter." Sex is something that Aitkens said he wanted to explore, and so he starts Act Two with Diane in Tom's bed with her proclaiming "You took advantage of me, how could you do that?" Tom responds quite wryly, "With a bit of help actually."
This theatre adaptation is an all new script which is both touching & sentimental, but above all hilarious; even though the clock is quite literally ticking for all of us this certainly is a laugh a minute production! Growing old dis-gracefully is the aim of the evening and it certainly does not disappoint. There are glimmers of the best of British screen writing such as Richard Curtis’s Four Weddings and a Funeral in this production, especially with the play's Right Honourable – and quite frankly adorable – Vicar Dennis Sparrow (Peter Cadden: The Bill) and his performance in the final act, which reaches a side splitting crescendo.
All in all this is a deeply touching portrayal of friendship, love and laughter and even with the thought of death looming so prevalently throughout the production, and the thought of ‘empty beds’ as they quite often speak of, there certainly weren't any empty seats or empty laughs amongst the audience.
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