Dumpy Biscuit
I’d really love to commend the whole Dumpy Biscuit team and wider The Other Room team on the efforts surrounding this show. The Other Room is a really, really small team usually working on a budget that would make a shoestring cry. I’ve seen media interviews, press coverage, there were some cool faces at the press night, the social media output has been stellar, not only have they made a super authentic piece of theatre which is not only really important for ‘theatre’, doing what they have done is super important for Port Talbot and culture in Wales generally, and this is incredibly commendable. I’m struggling to think of another show that has platformed so authentically a voice and a story about a place, at that place, and made so much awesome noise in doing so.
Dumpy Biscuit follows Skylar’s return from London back to their hometown of Port Talbot where their life catches up with them and they have to face what they may have been running from. It’s a story about love, raw anger, self acceptance, and four friends thrust into a situation they aren’t experts at navigating their way out of. It’s a very punchy and rapid story told, at points, at a breakneck speed as we skid through a fairly turbulent time in their lives performed by four excellent actors.
I always fear when I don’t understand something that I might not have been paying enough attention and I am prepared wholeheartedly for this to be the case, but it seemed to me like a fair few of the storylines were left unresolved in quite an unsatisfying way. I don’t need my stories to have neat bow ties, but if they leave me asking more questions than I started with it seems like something isn’t quite right. The way the story ended made me a little confused about the journey Skylar went on and if anything had truly changed for them from the start of the show, I suspect not, and maybe this was the point, but I’m not sat here stroking my beard pondering the complexities of the show, I am wondering why so many of the plot lines are left open and if this was a choice.
The script is clearly written with a lot of jokes and moments of relief in it, but for some reason I don’t think many of these made it to the stage in a way that had the comedic impact that was intended. I’m unsure why this was, I suspect it may have something to do with the chatty ultra-naturalistic style of the dialogue and how this might be at odds with traditional joke delivery.
The set design was beautiful, and I particularly enjoyed the lighting design. Hood’s attention to detail with the colours of the varying states and how they appeared to reflect a very realistic portrayal of the tones of the light felt really special to me in a way that I haven’t really seen before.
I really appreciated how much the general action of the play looked like a bunch of friends on their sofa just talking, it was written and performed very authentically and was really interesting to watch, but this was intercepted with a series of movement pieces, some of which were really rhythmic and interesting, but throughout the play read increasingly as someone thrashing around and it got a little repetitive and beyond the obvious emotional read of the movements I wasn’t quite sure what it was trying to say.
The sound design was punchy and traveled in really interesting directions, I found myself bobbing my head along to the show a fair few times and making a sort of face to adequately reflect how filthy (compliment) some of it was. I was really surprised it never really grew to a point where it felt like I was in some of the environments, I never felt the bass of the club, there weren't any harsh drops to compliment the action on stage. It doesn’t take away from the beauty of the design, I just left thinking how cool it would have been to really own that space with the sound design.
Overall, for a show that had moments of such raw anger and emotion and some excellent performances to back it up, it felt oddly safe. I didn’t feel challenged by the show, just the script. Whilst its themes are so important, the lack of clarity around the general action of the show and the loose ends left dangling made me leave somewhat confused about the overall intention of the play.
