The Ushers

Had Raindog been a company filled with recent graduates just starting out in the business, their production of The Ushers would come across as a flawed but competent start, filled with potential.

However, given that it is a professional endeavour, it is an embarrassingly weak play filled with characters you want to continuously slap.

Two lifelong friends enter a flat in Sheffield. They are serving as ushers for the wedding of one's sister and it soon transpires that the other has long had a crush on the bride-to-be. Both harbour jealousies and come to question their friendship and place in life.

To call Simon Crowther’s script transparent wouldn’t begin to hint at how blatantly obvious every single moment is. It’s almost mind-numbing knowing five minutes into the story where the characters are going to stand two hours later. To his credit, Crowther has written some humorous lines, but these act like a plaster that has been applied to a recent amputation.

Stuart Davids’s production can at best be described as functional, offering little in interpretation and presentation. Craig Porter and Neil Leiper seem to limp through the play, acting at a pace that is always a beat too slow for what’s happening. Vicky Binns and James Kirk fare slightly better as friends Zoe and Chubby, but that could be down to the fact that they have the better lines. The cast aren’t helped by the fact that they are playing unlikable characters who behave ridiculously and unconvincingly.

All of this adds to a frustrating experience. There are a few genuine laughs and the plot contains strands that, with development, could make for compelling theatre. However, between shallow characters, uninspired direction and flat plotting, this production doesn’t justify its existence.