Kerry Jackson: Trailer, certificate and where to watch
Cold Feet's Fay Ripley plays a new restaurant owner in this brash comedy about life
Year: 2022
Watch now on National Theatre At Home
Putting working-class characters on stage can be a tricky business, because so many of the writers who write about them and the actors who play them are from rather more privileged backgrounds. And there's a bit of that awkwardness in this comedy starring Cold Feet's Fay Ripley as the brash new owner of a tapas restaurant. Kerry (Ripley) is determined to do anything for a good review to get 'El Barco' off the ground, and the play feels like it's going to be about that - then the grieving, upper-class intellectual Stephen crosses her path and it becomes a bit of a will-they, won't-they romcom.
Political issues bubble up around them - homelessness, immigration, the criminal justice system - but the best reason to tune in is to watch Ripley striding around, calling it how she sees it and deliberately rubbing people up the wrong way. Ultimately the story is really about class, privilege and practicality in Britain and it does have interesting things to say about all that by the end. Among the cast, the acting of Kitty Hawthorne as Stephen's drifting daughter Alice has a subtle quietness to it that feels very welcome with all the noise elsewhere. (128 minutes)
