Review: Waitress at the Liverpool Empire ****

To lose one leading actor on opening night may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both ‘names’…well, let’s just say it’s not ideal.

But as the Reverend Mother tells Maria in The Sound of Music, when God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.

And the absence of both Carrie Hope Fletcher AND Les Dennis from the Empire stage, both indisposed for undisclosed reasons, allowed several other members of the Waitress cast a chance to shine.

None more so than Ellie Ruiz Rodriguez who donned Fletcher’s pinny to play Jenna, the titular server and pie maker extraordinaire at the heart of the story.

Rodriguez, who usually plays Nurse Norma (pictured above, left), seized the opportunity and saved the day with a winning performance that was both sweet and poignant and which deserved every second of the appreciative applause and cheers she received at the curtain.

Meanwhile Dan O’Brien brought requisite warmth to the role of Old Joe, grouchy proprietor of Joe’s Pie Diner where the story mostly unfolds, and Will Arundell, stepping up from Swing to replace O’Brien as harassed diner manager Cal, proved a livewire replacement. In turn fellow Swing, Bayley Hart, was delightfully deadpan as the cynical nurse.

While one can obviously hope for at least Fletcher’s return during this week (there was a suggestion last night that Dennis won’t be appearing at all), Waitress is in excellent hands in the meantime.

Above: Waitress: The Musical. Top: Nurse Norma (Ellie Ruiz Rodriguez), Jenna (Carrie Hope Fletcher) and Dr Pomatter (Dan Partridge). Photos by Johan Persson.

Sara Bareilles and Jessie Nelson’s musical celebrates the 10^th anniversary of its Broadway premiere this year. It arrived in the West End in 2019 (complete with the option of a glass ramekin of pie in the ticket price – I had banoffee!) although the pandemic brought a premature end to its run.

In turn, the musical is based on the late Adrienne Shelly’s 2007 bittersweet cinematic drama about young woman who bakes inventive pies to mentally escape an abusive marriage in the small-town Deep South.

Creating calorie rich pie perfection, both sweet and savoury, has become a way for Jenna to daydream her way out of real life.

And it’s both real life, in the form of an unwanted pregnancy, and dreamy pies, which launch her into the orbit of Dan Partridge’s neurotic Doctor Pomatter, a goofy gynaecologist who it has to be said should definitely be a candidate for being struck off if he was working in the NHS.

Above: Dawn (Evelyn Hoskins) and Ogie (Mark Anderson) in Waitress. Photo by Johan Persson.

There’s also plenty of enjoyable ditz from Evelyn Hoskins as one of Jenna’s loyal bestie workmates Dawn, and her peculiar, passionate, poetry spouting paramour Ogie. Mark Anderson was a member of the original cast of The Book of Mormon, and here he brings a similarly fresh-faced but slyly delivered glint to the eccentric Romeo.

Meanwhile Bernadette Bangura’s no-nonsense Becky hides her heartache behind a ballsy public persona. And Mark Willshire fully embraces his baddie status as Jenna’s awful, abusive man-child husband Earl.

On the downside, it takes a long time for not much to actually happen. And you may not want to see another pie for a while after watching so many being baked and eaten.

Most of the action takes place in the 70-minute first half, while the plot’s emotional filling comes together after the interval, reaching a climax in Jenna’s poignant She Used to Be Mine, sung beautifully by Rodriguez.

But with a colourful cast of characters, solid ensemble backing, a cheery on-stage musical ensemble and an upbeat, life-affirming finale, a decade on from its beginnings, Waitress remains a tasty theatrical treat.