Christopher Gray tells how Patrick Marber's play shows a card game making fools of people

A good knowledge of the rules and arcane varieties of poker comes in handy for prospective audience members at a performance of Patrick Marber’s gripping 1995 play Dealer’s Choice.

But if you are without one, all is not lost. You need merely to understand, as Marber clearly does, that poker is a game that makes fools of the people who become slaves to it, and paupers too.

It helps as well not to engage too closely with any of the men — and they are all men — whom we watch at play. That way you can avoid feeling sympathy for them, and instead marvel — and laugh — at the rich absurdity of their antics.

The writer makes it easy in this respect, for none of the men rises far above the level of caricature.

Marber, a one-time ornament of the Oxford student stage, went on to become a major name in stand-up (and later radio and TV) comedy in the early 1990s.

Dealer’s Choice, his first play (and a big hit), demonstrates the gift for sharp one-liners and acute observation that he honed on the circuit, as well as his intimate knowledge of poker and its players developed during 20 years at the tables.

Its focus is on the Sunday night (more Monday morning) game organised by restaurateur Stephen (Richard Hawley) in the basement of his premises.

Pernickity in every detail, like any obsessive, he will not permit a four-handed game. This looks to be a problem when one of the five regulars, the chef Sweeney (Carl Prekopp), insists on a night off: he wants to be fresh (and in funds) for a rare outing on Monday with his five-year-old daughter.

Efforts to persuade him to change his mind (you can guess how they end) are the principal business of the first part of the play. These are made by colleagues Frankie (Tom Canton), a waiter in the ‘god’s gift to women’ mould, and the best comic character Mugsy — the name certainy fits — whose many gleeful idiocies are perfectly paraded here by Cary Crankson.

With the stage split between kitchen and adjoining office/restaurant, we meanwhile watch a fiery confrontation between Stephen and his feckless (though clearly still much loved) son Carl (Oliver Coopersmith). Bound up in his financial woes is the menacing character of customer Ash (Ian Burfield) whose meal is followed by an invitation to the game.

Ably directed by Michael Longhurst, the production heads for Oxford next month. Don’t miss it!

Dealer’s Choice
Royal&Derngate, Northampton
Until June 14
01604 624811 / royalandderngate.co.uk

Oxford Playhouse June 17-21             
01865 305305 or visit oxfordplayhouse.com