Hope Has a Happy Meal (NHB Modern Plays)

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The resultant escapade feels part Thelma and Louise, part reverse-Wizard of Oz, and Lucy Morrison’s direction neatly balances the comic beats with darker material, including a nightmarish gameshow hallucination. Felix Scott gives a panoply of excellent performances, from a brutal cop to a hopeless ex-husband, and there is enough vim and vigour to the production that when Isla announces that “this is, like, the best adventure ever!” you’re just about prepared to overlook the horrible thing that’s being sanctioned in the basement. During the next 20 minutes In Stereo shows O’Flynn’s lonely narrator experiencing a psychotic episode in which the actor’s recorded voiceover tells the supernatural story of a damp stain on the wall which gradually takes over her life. Alone on stage with a television, the silent O’Flynn moves warily as her entire life begins to be consumed not only by the growing mould around her, but also by fractures of her self as her words splinter into several simultaneous and competing voices. McDowall shows how the mottled room, itself a character, will outlive this one woman and will absorb the lives of future generations until climate change washes over everyone. You can use “bon appetit” in English just as easily as you can if you speak French. English speakers know what it means, and they know its sentiment. That’s why it’s better than saying a simple “enjoy your meal.” It’s most appropriate in more informal places (especially those with children as guests). However, you’ll find it works well anywhere.

The process of writing this play has been hard and long, partly because this is my first big, full-length play but also because in 2016, when I first conceived of the play, I was still early in my politicization. So writing this play has been the process of developing the story and the characters but also the process of me educating myself and, ultimately, becoming more confidently socialist. I would say the play is firmly rooted in now and the politics of the last five years, but by it being set in the People’s Republic of Koka Kola (rather than Britain) there’s a detachment that hopefully makes it feel a little more universal. It’s a shame that the promise of political provocation doesn’t quite deliver . Hope has a Happy Meal wants to use its saturated fats dystopia to illuminate the counterpoint: the organic humanity, the flawed individuals, the fleshy niggly bits that don’t fit into the plastic cut and paste conformity of a cancerously corporate world. Enjoy” is a simple exclamation. We can remove “your meal” entirely from the phrase if we want to. Now, “enjoy” works to show that we’re enthusiastic and that we want people to start eating their food straight away.

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Over the last five years I feel like people on the left across the country have felt the experience of having hope and then losing it, and I wanted the play to reflect that. So ‘hope’ is shown to be beautiful and powerful but unreliable. It can lift you up but then tear you down just as easily. The preferred version is “bon appetit.” It’s a French phrase that has become increasingly popular in English languages. Everyone understands what it means, and it makes for a refreshing change from the usual “enjoy your meal.” It works both formally and informally. Bon Appetit I really like the way that Fowler parodies the banal pronouncements of those in power, and his evident sympathy for the marginalized and the needy. There is also something very allusive in his writing: the mention of Strawberry Fields commune brings to mind the Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby” when, some time later, it becomes evident that we are dealing with a situation that could be described as “all the lonely people, where do they all come from?” I also like the psychological insights, expressed perhaps most directly in the clown game show sequence, and the drunken episode when Hope and Lor get plastered. Yet anger and violence step on the toes of all the humour. Despite all the jokes, notions of loss and death give the piece its much needed shadows. Heading to the BP Nature Reserve where Hope believes her sister is living, they are helped to evade the authorities en route by a passenger on the Koka Kola Railway and a lorry driver who likes American country music.

It works well because people don’t always expect their servers to be the most entertaining or enthusiastic. If you can show them that you care enough about them and your job to be lively and fun, you might just win them over. It’s common for servers in English to use “enjoy your meal” when serving a table. However, it’s often overused, and many people would like to find alternatives to keep their service fresh. That’s where this article comes in, and we’ll help you find the best alternatives out there. What Can I Say Instead Of “Enjoy Your Meal”? Let me know if there’s anything else you need” works if you do not want to say “enjoy your meal.” The sentiment is still there, but we do not have to say it outright for the people to understand what we mean. Instead, we can offer them a different service. Tom Fowler has cooked up a s atiric al allegoric al quest of a pl ay, where a collection of r ag-t ag ch ar acters struggle to survive in the People’s Republic of Kok a Kol a (the PRKK) a post-democr atic country now in the full throes of hyper-c apit al ism and run by corpor ate gi ants (the he ad of the country is a CEO). But the piece also loses its w ay just as the m ain ch ar acter, Hope, st arts to find hers.The sentiment is still the same as the others on this list. We still want the diners to enjoy their time in the restaurant and to have a nice meal. However, we use “I hope” to introduce ourselves as a formal entity, and “pleasant” is a great adjective to use too. The serious satirical swipe at consumer culture gets sadly lost along the way, but there is plenty of humanity here to make up for it.

That’s why phrases like “it’s all yours” exist. They are more subtle in their delivery, which helps many servers to remain confident and enthusiastic, without saying “enjoy your meal” in a condescending way. It’s an amusing play with believable, well-performed central characters and a plot line that hooks the audience. Although it touches on a few serious issues and includes moments of violence, these are dealt with superficially as the play encourages a light, entertaining mood of hope. The overall effect is an exciting contribution to contemporary playwriting –it’s art that seems to make your mind go woo-woo.Beyond naming places after brands and a message on the plane, there isn’t really the sense of a hyper-capitalist dictatorship. The play could have as easily been set in modern Britain with only a few changes. There should have been more sponsorships, more intrusion, and a greater sense that they are being spied on. In reality, Elon Musk is suggesting a future that includes serfdom on Mars, companies drape themselves in LGBTQ+ flags whilst funding hate groups and clothes manufacturers say their products represent freedom, even as they are made in sweatshops – all more ridiculous and dystopian than is presented here. Where Hope Has A Happy Meal does falter, is in the elements of satire and allegory. Hope’s character is too detailed to be an allegorical version of the concept and the other characters do not seem to represent anything outside of themselves. This is in part because the writing and performances of those characters aren’t flat enough for allegory but also because The People’s Republic of Koka Kola never really comes to life. Naomi Dawson’s set design deserves special mention, as the neon-lit, multi-levelled structure effectively transports the audience through various locations within the dystopian world. From flats to train toilets, each scene is seamlessly transitioned, contributing to the overall flow of the play. Hope has a Happy Meal is a surreal quest story that follows the enigmatic character, Hope, on a frenetic return journey to the hyper-capitalist country she once escaped. In her pursuit, she embarks on a playful exploration of privatisation and capitalism versus community, all while seeking something she left behind.