A play (with music) by Dan Dawes, Everlasting Cake is set in a care home, Sleepy Brook, where the ‘inmates’ (their word) chat, bicker, and wait for their final exit.
That’s not the whole story, though, in this Questors production. We first meet Elsie as a young singer during the war, and her versions of a range of period songs thread through the play.
Some are curiously on Western themes (“Cow Cow Boogie”), suggesting a yen for freedom from our group of bored and docile octogenarians, unable to even go outdoors.
As they dare to dream about what might have been while suffering the regimented neglect and cruelty of the Hooks who run Sleepy Brook.
The title is literal. When prickly Janet is admitted to the care home by her son, her growing bond with Elsie leads them to bake a cake with the ability to change lives.
After a first half of introduction, puppetry, exaggerated bad guys, and ‘what might have been’, we move into an act two of farce, fun, and feeling.
The residents of Sleepy Brook – Patricia, Harriet, William, George, Elsie, and Old Monty – all offer clues to what they could have been. A culinary whizz, drinking connoisseur, perpetual joker, and so on.
Dawes – who also directs – pulls out some poignancy between the laughs about the passage of time, loss, and reliance on others. He also finds the humour in rebellion and fantasy – although the Hooks (Jolyon Houghton and Lisa Varty) are a little overplayed.
It’s an expert cast, led by Lauren McGee and Sarah Morrison as 1940s and 1990s Elsie. Annie Harries is a hoot with her hip flask, Anthony Curran‘s wisecracks hide a lonely existence, Panto regular Derek Stoddart displays hidden depths.
Patricia O’Brien is delightful as the ever-greedy foodie, and John Dobson adds a jovial sheen to his war hero. Puppeteer Klara Wit adds life to the cat Mrs Pickles while the ASMs offer an array of amusing mice.
Set designer Bron Blake has captured both time periods with an upper-level proscenium arch and dressing-room table, and a lower set of entrances and exits for the second act antics.
There’s a lot of charm in Everlasting Cake, and it is always fun to see a cast made up of players of a certain age. I enjoyed the jazz music sung by the fabulous McGee and played by a four-strong off-stage band led by John Hennessy.
On a sunny evening, this was a treat, and we stepped out at around 10pm with the feeling that “it’s never too late to dream” is a pretty good mantra to live by.
4 stars.
Everlasting Cake is at the Questors until 30 May.
Photo credit: Jamie Gould
The Questors are currently fundraising to replace the roof on the Studio and rehearsal rooms building.