I was reminded of the novel by the journalist Keith Waterhouse’s Novel Office Life. Nothing happens, nothing is produced and there is no point. Waterhouse’s novel of the 1970s was a satire on job creation schemes designed to soak up the unemployed with meaningless office administration work. The same theme is continued in Dumb Found Theatre’s office-based comedy satire drama Last Wednesday’s Work Shirt in an all-out water cooler and lunchtime booze up attack on boring office jobs, corporate nonsense and the hollowness of the nine to five.
So many people retire wondering why they spent so much time at the office when they could have been with family and friends, and this drama confirms those fears. Why work for 50 years in a dull job to retire and watch daytime TV until you die? Last Wednesday’s Work Shirt asks some of those questions but delivers not too many answers. Essentially the line in the finale scene is ‘I quit’ with little alternatives for a future devoid of clocking in – but there’s a but… what happens when you quit a job you hate? Do you become unemployed or should you have an exit strategy to become self-employed, travel, lead an off grid lifestyle or simply take a new job with less money? No answers here.
The cast of three gave voice to a variety of characters with committed accents from Welsh to Estuary, to north of Hadrian’s Wall to mellow Bristolian in an impressive display of accents to illustrate a reception area of workers and their ghastly managers. And their body language was spot on with observational details from eating a banana to implying office sex in the stationery cupboard – or rather board room table. David Staples (Joe Topping) is stuck in a pointless, dead-end job. No matter what he does – pints every lunchtime, all-expenses paid ‘business’ holidays, dangerous driving in the company car – his bosses pay him less attention, and more money – so the story goes.
The comedy from Pea Bien Theatre (Painting By Numbers) kept a near full house at Axe Vale Arts Centre in Axbridge engaged throughout. If only the production had inserted more choreography of the opening number to the sounds of Bethoven’s 5th which promised more than what was to take place in the two act play.
Aaron May was highly effective in his transformation from a work colleague to an office cleaner and memorably as a goldfish – as he added a range of voices to illustrate the drama. Joe Topping as the Kafkaesque figure of David Staples – the hapless graduate of an Art History degree who is gifted a job as an impossibly titled office administrator with no job and no role in life as his love life ends with all the enthusiasm of an office Christmas party hang over. While Jacob Aldcroft added strong support in this Take Art promoted drama bringing not so much a play but a showcase for the trio of actors of their undoubted skills.
Enjoyable, true to life and a play that sends a shaft of life between the photocopiers on the office floor to the false fun of the corporate team building weekend that reminds us of how shallow and somewhat grubby work can be. An excellent piece of theatre in Last Wednesday’s Work Shirt was well received in Axe Vale Arts Centre but unlikely to be a hit in some company board rooms.
Harry Mottram
For more of what’s on at the arts centre see https://axevalearts.org.uk/
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Axbridge Diary of Events
Some Axbridge dates coming up.
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