Buyer & Cellar
Rating: ★★★★
Venue: King's Head Theatre, London
Cast: Rob Madge

Ten years after closing off-Broadway and four years since it was last seen in London, Buyer & Cellar is a one-person comedy set in 2010 on the back of the release of Barbra Streisand’s book ‘My Passion For Design’, about the famous mini-mall in the basement of her Malibu home (true), and what it might be like to work there (not true).

A visit to Winterthur Museum of American Decorative Arts, which features a display of early 19th-century shops, inspired Streisand to organise her large collection of possessions into a series of storefronts displaying her treasures. The script touches on moments of Streisand’s childhood trauma that are detailed inside her book, as a partial explanation behind her somewhat eccentric behaviour.

The show starts with Alex earnestly and passionately reassuring us that this story is not real and that he like things that are real (gesturing to the hairpiece). He goes on to paint a picture of a well-loved film and theatre icon who in actual fact is incredibly lonely and tries to fill the hole in her life, and her big expensive home, with material gains.

Rob Madge has a natural flair for storytelling, with the innate ability to switch seamlessly between dramatic over-the-top comedy acting to moments of stillness and emotion and hit every single beat with ease. I truly forgot at times that only one actor was on the stage, such is Rob’s ability to distinguish between five different characters effortlessly and I really enjoyed watching a tender relationship build between a nobody and one of the nations most loved stars.

The script told a cleverly unique story despite being a little slow in parts, running at just under 2 hours straight through. There were a few jokes and stereotypes relating to Barbra’s Jewish heritage that, as a Jewish audience member I found a little distasteful and it made me slightly uncomfortable listening to the elicited laughter. I’m not entirely sure that the writing holds up on its own, it relies heavily on the talent that brings it to life on stage, and I couldn’t think of anyone who would be better. It’s almost as if the part was written for Rob.

Stage Manager Rosie Morgan operates the show with the utmost sensitivity, exacerbating Rob’s comedic timing tenfold and really folded the tech into the show itself, when it just as easily could’ve been a complimentary extra. In a play of this nature, tech is often something that makes a nice little addition but wouldn’t be missed if it wasn’t there. Rosie’s intuitive timing, along with Jack Weir’s lighting design and Emily Rose Simon’s sound design and composition, bridge this gap nicely.

Showbiz can be a really lonely profession. It’s easy to be blinded by the glitz and glamour sometimes, but as Barbra reminds us ‘there’s always somebody who wants something from you or expects something of you’. Buyer & Cellar is a wholesome and heart-breaking reminder that people really do need people. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you come from, or what you have, everybody has the same fundamental human need to feel loved, appreciated, and held by people around you.

I’ve certainly been left with a craving for a KitKat and some coffee froyo (with rainbow sprinkles of course).

You can catch Buyer & Cellar at The Kings Head Theatre until 19th October. Tickets available here.

Review by Rachel

**photo credit: Genevieve Girling**