Last week I took myself off to a matinee performance of Toast staring Matthew Kelly at The Rose Theatre. The plan was set in a bread factory in 1970's Hull. The language was colourful and it was very funny. The writer, Richard Bean, who also wrote One Man, Two Guvnors, spent a year working in a bread factory as a student. This is where he found his material - characters and their stories. Deciding that I would not pay a fortune in the break for ice cream I splashed out on a programme. I'm glad I did as there was so much information in it about the bread industry of the time, the jobs people did as well as interview with the writer. I learned a lot.
The story follows one night shift, the interaction between workers on their fag breaks and half hour breaks, the introduction of a student with his own problems and a large order when equipment would be running at maximum speed. Finally one of ovens breaks down and they have to decide what to do (no management is present on night shifts). I enjoyed this production. There was a lot of smoking on stage. One forgets that in those days there were no laws about smoking at work and smoking breaks were incorporated into the shift to accommodate it! How times have changed. Now everyone hangs around outside buildings in all weathers to light up - the loners and the conspirators in like-minded huddles!
This is the first of several performances at The Rose I have booked. The autumn season was all Shakespeare. Now they've got that out of their system there are some good plays coming up (actually one is about Shakespeare's wife!).
(I don't mean that Shakespeare plays are no good. It's just that I like variety)
The story follows one night shift, the interaction between workers on their fag breaks and half hour breaks, the introduction of a student with his own problems and a large order when equipment would be running at maximum speed. Finally one of ovens breaks down and they have to decide what to do (no management is present on night shifts). I enjoyed this production. There was a lot of smoking on stage. One forgets that in those days there were no laws about smoking at work and smoking breaks were incorporated into the shift to accommodate it! How times have changed. Now everyone hangs around outside buildings in all weathers to light up - the loners and the conspirators in like-minded huddles!
This is the first of several performances at The Rose I have booked. The autumn season was all Shakespeare. Now they've got that out of their system there are some good plays coming up (actually one is about Shakespeare's wife!).
(I don't mean that Shakespeare plays are no good. It's just that I like variety)
Couldn't resist this! Toast - Streetband
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