Theatre review: Hope has a Happy Meal

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: I saw the show a couple of nights before Press Night.

When she became a teen mother Hope (Laura Checkley) abandoned her family and baby son, leaving him with her sister to raise, and went travelling around the world. She cut off all contact but 24 years later she's returned home unannounced, to try and reconnect with what family she has left. But home is the People's Republic of Koka Kola, a cross between North Korea and M&M's World, where everything from the trains to the forests is owned and run by multinational corporations. Tom Fowler's Hope has a Happy Meal is a similarly jarring mix of styles and themes, which opens with Hope telling a rambling but clever joke, before turning into, variously, a fairytale road trip, a thriller, and a kitchen sink drama, all with a touch of surreal comedy and a sense that if the concept of hope returned after a long absence, its journey would be as rocky and weird as that of the character of the same name.

One obvious influence is The Wizard of Oz, as Hope's journey to find her now-grown son sees her add a new travelling companion at every stop, beginning with Isla (Mary Malone,) who's looking after her baby nephew following her sister's death. Isla later saves the suicidal Ali (Nima Taleghani,) with the pair starting a relationship and finding something to hope for in each other.

They're later joined by the murderous cop Wayne (Felix Scott,) who they have to tie up and keep in the basement of Lor (Amaka Okafor,) Hope's long-lost sister who's developed a drinking problem since she last saw her. Director Lucy Morrison manages to keep the tonal whiplash somewhat under control so the contradictions don't become too jarring and the changes are smooth, but it didn't stop me occasionally thinking I was in a completely different play than I'd been in half an hour earlier.

So Naomi Dawson's inventively-used set is neon-lit (by Anna Watson) when the audience enters, reminiscent of a fairgound or a game show studio, as indeed it becomes in one dream sequence. The production initially has the feel of an Anthony Neilson play in its surreal, adult fairytale journey with heightened characters through a strange, garish land. The move to something a bit more naturalistic and characters who increasingly show depth is obviously an intentional progression, but I felt it noticeable that the hyper-real, hyper-capitalist world the playwright's created has been pushed into the background, and we lose some sense of what the story's trying to say with it.

Still, if the script's uneven it's often hugely entertaining, and all five performances, with most of the characters multi-roling, bring a different and interesting energy, from Taleghani's cheekiness, to Malone's somewhat fussy characters, to Okafor's poker-faced put-downs. I'm not entirely sure what Hope has a Happy Meal is trying to say, but I had fun not quite getting it.

Hope has a Happy Meal by Tom Fowler is booking until the 8th of July at the Royal Court's Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes straight through.

Photo credit: Helen Murray.