{"id":926259,"date":"2026-04-29T11:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/926259\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T11:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T11:53:14","slug":"waitress-birmingham-hippodrome-the-reviews-hub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/926259\/","title":{"rendered":"Waitress – Birmingham Hippodrome – The Reviews Hub"},"content":{"rendered":"

Book: Jessie Nelson<\/strong><\/p>\n

Music and Lyrics: Sara Bareilles<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director: Diane Paulus<\/strong><\/p>\n

Joe\u2019s Pie Diner is not, on the face of it, a place where life-changing things happen. People eat. Pies are made. The day passes. The recipe sounds simple enough \u2013 and in less assured hands it might stay that way. But this is Sara Bareilles\u2019 Waitress, and the ingredients here are anything but ordinary.<\/p>\n

Based on Adrienne Shelly\u2019s 2007 film, Waitress follows Jenna, a waitress at the diner alongside her friends and colleagues Becky and Dawn. Stuck in an abusive and loveless marriage to Earl, she channels her frustrations and her considerable talent into baking pies of extraordinary invention. When she discovers she\u2019s pregnant and meets her new gynaecologist, Dr Pomatter, recently arrived in town, things become considerably more complicated. Her two colleagues, meanwhile, are busy finding their own kinds of happiness. The show\u2019s genius is that it holds all of this together \u2013 the raw and the funny, the heartbreaking and the joyful \u2013 without letting any one element tip the balance.<\/p>\n

Scott Pask\u2019s set design is a delight: spare and fluid, with few pieces that can be rearranged almost invisibly, it keeps the show in near-constant motion. Scene changes are choreographed around and behind the action, becoming part of the storytelling rather than interruptions to it. A backdrop of a road stretching into the distance, framed by silhouetted telegraph poles, shifts character through Ken Billington\u2019s lighting \u2013 deep pinks and oranges for dawn and dusk, bright and flat for the unforgiving daylight of the diner \u2013 echoing the emotional tone of whatever is unfolding in front of it.<\/p>\n

Lorin Latarro\u2019s choreography is excellent \u2013 sharp, well-conceived and precisely executed, establishing the show\u2019s tone from the opening What\u2019s Inside and sustaining it throughout. Bareilles\u2019 score has by now taken on a life of its own beyond the production, and hearing it in context is a reminder of how well-constructed it is \u2013 at times funny, tender and emotionally forceful, often all three at once.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a uniformly strong supporting cast. Dan O\u2019Brien brings excellent comic timing to Cal, the diner manager whose gruff authority conceals a warmth he\u2019d rather not admit to. Mark Anderson\u2019s Ogie is a masterclass in controlled physical comedy \u2013 delightfully over-the-top, and his scenes with Evelyn Hoskins\u2019 Dawn are among the show\u2019s funniest. Mark Willshire is suitably menacing as Earl, the threat in his performance understated but never in doubt. In smaller but no less crucial roles, Les Dennis brings a quiet wisdom and observational warmth to Joe, the diner\u2019s elderly owner, while Ellie Ruiz Rodriguez\u2019s nurse is a knowing comic gem \u2013 all sidelong glances and audience asides, apparently aware of rather more than she\u2019s initially letting on.<\/p>\n

Dan Partridge is an engaging Dr Pomatter \u2013 endearingly awkward, a man visibly wrestling with an attraction he knows perfectly well he shouldn\u2019t act on. The production handles the affair with a light comic touch that never quite lets you forget the authenticity of it. He is in fine voice too; the chemistry between them makes the relationship entirely credible, and their scenes together carry a real tenderness alongside the comedy.<\/p>\n

The three female leads are the heart of the production, and the chemistry between them is genuine and warm. Hoskins, reprising a role she has now played across multiple productions, including the original West End run, brings a quirky comic energy to Dawn that never feels stale \u2013 her timing with Anderson is particularly good. Sandra Marvin, also reprising her role as Becky, is all swagger and straight-talking, not about to take anything from Cal or anyone else, and her performance of I Didn\u2019t Plan It \u2013 the big Act Two opening \u2013 showcases her well-known vocal skills superbly. Both feel completely at home in roles they have made entirely their own.<\/p>\n

Carrie Hope Fletcher\u2019s Jenna is, however, something special. Confident and open in the warmth of the diner, she almost visibly contracts in Earl\u2019s presence \u2013 a woman who has learned to make herself small, and who pours everything she cannot say into her baking. Fletcher tracks Jenna\u2019s emotional journey with precision and without sentimentality. The comedy is light and assured, the more painful moments entirely believable, and the transitions between the two handled with a confidence that makes the whole performance feel seamless. Vocally, she is superb throughout, but it is She Used to Be Mine \u2013 the show\u2019s emotional centrepiece \u2013 that shows her at her best. The audience is almost entirely still, drawn into her emotions.<\/p>\n

That the show is written and directed by women, based on a film made by a woman, and built around three female characters with genuine emotional lives and genuine agency, still feels significant. Jenna\u2019s story \u2013 of dreams deferred, of a talent that deserves better than it has been given, of the slow work of finding the courage to change \u2013 is told with intelligence and empathy. Becky and Dawn offer counterpoint: their relationships are lighter, funnier, but no less honest. The whole thing is, in the best sense, a story told from observation and experience.<\/p>\n

This production has all the right ingredients and is perfectly baked.<\/p>\n

Runs until 2 May 2026 and on tour<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\tThe Reviews Hub Star Rating<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t100%<\/p>\n

\t\t\tAll the right ingredients, perfectly baked. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Book: Jessie Nelson Music and Lyrics: Sara Bareilles Director: Diane Paulus Joe\u2019s Pie Diner is not, on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926260,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7820],"tags":[259408,855,28618,748,72617,259409,85393,259410,259411,393,259412,4884,259413,259414,259415,259416,259417,259418,259419,135191,259420,16,15,252784],"class_list":{"0":"post-926259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-birmingham","8":"tag-adrienne-shelly","9":"tag-birmingham","10":"tag-birmingham-hippodrome","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-carrie-hope-fletcher","13":"tag-dan-obrien","14":"tag-dan-partridge","15":"tag-diane-paulus","16":"tag-ellie-ruiz-rodriguez","17":"tag-england","18":"tag-evelyn-hoskins","19":"tag-great-britain","20":"tag-jessie-nelson","21":"tag-ken-billington","22":"tag-les-dennis","23":"tag-lorin-latarro","24":"tag-mark-anderson","25":"tag-mark-willshire","26":"tag-sandra-marvin","27":"tag-sara-bareilles","28":"tag-scott-pask","29":"tag-uk","30":"tag-united-kingdom","31":"tag-waitress"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116487861597981835","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=926259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926259\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}