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Nicholas de Jongh's rating
Reader rating
Dir: Samuel West.
Cast: Samuel Barnett, Ross Boatman, Roger Lloyd Pack, Jay Simpson, Malcolm Sinclair, Stephen Wight
Description: A revival of Patrick Marber's drama about a supposedly friendly poker game which turns into a highly charged evening of psychological tension and violence. Directed by Samuel West.
Trains: Tube/BR: London Bridge 
Phone: 0207907 7060
Website: www.menierchocolatefactory.com
Extra info: Food, Pub
Chips are down: Roger Lloyd Pack, as Ash, hoping the next hand will solve his poker debts
Even people like me, who know nothing about poker or gambling, will be fascinated by Patrick Marber's Dealer's Choice.
Samuel West's gripping production of this psychological comedy that made the playwright's name in 1995 makes you forcefully aware that Marber's real interest is in showing how compulsive-addictive behaviour exerts a destructive impact upon close, personal relationships.
The fact that poker has improved its reputation since the mid 1990s, when it was considered a hot, sleazy pursuit and has since become indecently glamorous, does not detract from the force of Marber's diagnosis: obsessive gambling takes over lives.
Tom Piper's elegant design accommodates both a restaurant, into which just one customer comes, and behind it a kitchen/cooking area.
The entire scene is framed against a mirrored back-cloth that heightens a sense of claustrophobia. Trouble, despite the jokey, male bantering, hovers in the air from the start.
From his first entrance you gather Stephen Wight's superbly exuberant waiter Mugsy, with his wild dreams of turning a Mile End lavatory into a restaurant, cannot resist the betting game - he bets on anything.
Samuel Barnett's weedy and emotionally distant Carl, son of the owner, Stephen (Malcolm Sinclair) arrives for the regular Sunday-night poker game trailing more than one urgent poker debt. Will his father lend him the money? The cook, Ross Boatman's Sweeney, aims to miss the session, but takes little persuading. These men are bound by poker.
Marber dawdles too long over scene-setting and sharp repartee, failing to make his characters much more than shadowy types. When, though, Roger Lloyd Pack's taciturn, slightly menacing stranger, Ash, arrives to claim the huge poker debt Carl owes him, the scene is set for a thrilling game whose psychological dynamics and surprises convey poker's seductiveness.
For a scheme - a poker-style bluff - is hatched by Ash and Carl that will relieve both of them of their poker debts. In the process, Mugsy succumbs to humiliation.
That competitive streak branded in too many males goads the players to treat life as an irresistible gambling spree and reveals how nothing but debts and poker unite father and son. Malcolm Sinclair's extraordinary, commanding performance as Stephen, with its elements of aloofness and inscrutability, sorrow and loneliness, conveys the pathos of a father who recognises his own role in his son's downfall.
• Until 17 November. Information, 020 7907 7060.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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