what’s rotting in the office fridge at Candleriggs, Glasgow Review
Written by Kirsty for Theatre and Tonic
Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in exchange for an honest review. All views are our own
“what’s rotting in the office fridge?” is a new piece of writing from Inksplat theatre company which centres around six employees at the Last Resort Incorporated, with the goal of reaching 100% so they can be retired.
There seems to be an issue with the spacing and spatial awareness throughout the piece, meaning the cast were standing the majority of the time, unable to develop a strong basis. Hopefully this is just an issue due to the particular venue which did seem to be fairly small even if the cast itself was single digits.
Some acting choices did verge on the student-y side, a lot of unnecessary hand gestures and overacting seemed to be happening, the chaotic choices feeling a little too much at times. However, Rebekah Copeland as Bridget stood out as the strongest in the cast, creating a character that whilst subtle, brought in the majority of laughs. It can also be said that Imogen Carmichael-Smith’s Remy performs an emotionally driven monologue in the final beats of the piece, starting to fulfil an arc that never truly felt present, instead being a harsh jump when space in the script allowed it.
According to the event’s webpage, it states that the character of Robin is the protagonist, but this didn’t feel like that during the piece. With the script being almost double that of a fringe show (which is where the production is heading), there is currently an inability to distinguish itself both overall and in a genre, feeling very extremely drawn out and struggles to quickly establish relationships between characters that it will need to do going forward. Whilst there did seem to be a Severance style aura in the air, it would be nice for a little extra storytelling through the production value, even as much as establishing a colour scheme for the costumes but then pick pieces that provide a basis for each character but keeps a cohesive office nature overall. Also it felt like there was no reasoning behind the song choices, especially with Robin being nicknamed Birdy, instead of Hello Dolly being used Bye, Bye, Birdie would have felt a little more cohesive.
For what feels like a first draft production, with a lot of fine tuning, script cuts and environmental establishing, “what’s rotting in the office fridge?” could become a strong and unique fringe production.
★ ★
