Review: Buyer and Cellar at the Theatre Royal

'Arch, camp, knowing – and yet naïve at the same time'

Is this a bit of a niche show? Probably. But it’s a great niche for fans of Barbra Streisand or show business or good theatre. They are going to revel in this and leave the theatre with smiles on their faces.
 
Running at 100 engrossing minutes, Buyer and Cellar is a one performer tour-de-force, brought to life here by the wonderfully versatile non—binary Rob Madge who plays out-of-work-actor Alex, as well as a load of other characters including his boyfriend, Barry, Hollywood star James Brolin, a terse house manger called Sharon and the iconic mega star Barbra Streisand. It works and it works terrifically.
 
The premise is that Alex, after being sacked as a “character actor” at Disneyland following an incident involving churros, is offered a highly secretive job running a private underground shopping mall in Malibu.
 
It transpires that it’s owned by Barbara Streisand who indulges her passion for shopping there while also using it as storage for some of her “stuff” – she has LOTS of stuff.
 
Writer Jonathan Tolins’ clever 2014 play makes it clear that although the Mall is absolutely real (as evidenced in Steisand’s 2010 book My Passion for Design) the story is fiction. “What I am going to tell you could not possibly have happened with a person as famous, talented and litigious as Barbra Streisand.” But blimey, you wish/ hope/want to believe that it IS true.
 
What the play explores, in a well nuanced production by director Kirk Jameson, are questions about friendships and identity. What makes a friend? Can you be friends with your boss? How can you find friends as a bona fide superstar? You find yourself willing there to be a genuine friendship here despite the obvious power imbalance.
 
The soundscape by Emily Rose Simons is both playful and evocative although I would have liked more from Ingrid Hu’s set design. Is Tolins’ script a little long? Possibly – but it doesn’t appear baggy.
 
Arch, camp, knowing – and yet naïve at the same time, it’s good to have this in Plymouth – its only venue outside London.