NewsThe Whisky Taster Opens at The Bush
James Graham's new play The Whisky Taster has opened at The Bush Theatre and runs until 20th February starring Samuel Barnett, Kate O'Flynn, John Stahl, Chris Larkin and Simon Merrells.
Directed by James Greive and with an imaginative design by Lucy Osbourne The Whisky Taster is a play about being twenty something in the noughties, about being in love with your colleagues and about living with synaethesia.
'a brilliantly pacey and culturally penetrating new comedy... Conveying the speed and the sheer informational and imagistic overload of our era is a hard task, but the theatre can have a salutary role in slowing down the rhythm and forcing one to concentrate on a few intensely focused aspects of life. Directed with a quick-witted, uncanny flair by James Grieve, The Whisky Taster manages to square the circle. It induces some of the exhilaration you get from the headlong knowingness of the best TV comedy, such as The Thick of It, while having the strong metaphoric framework of inspired theatre. And in its central protagonist, it fields a cleverly angled and coded symbol of the age...the very talented author manages to pack in unpretentiously many of our current preoccupations.'
Paul Taylor, The Independent *****
'This fine new play by James Graham is a classic example of the Bush Theatre at its quirky best. It is charming, funny, sad and original and has much to say about the times in which we live...Like a great malt whisky, this rich, idiosyncratic drama leaves a long, complex and highly attractive aftertaste. ' Charles Spencer, The Telegraph ****
'Written with enormous charm, psychological depth and satirical bite, The Whisky Taster is a bitter-sweet story of contemporary London workaholic youth... Thought-provoking, observant and emotionally intelligent, this is a superb piece of new writing.' Aleks Sierz, The Stage