Appraisal

Meeting Pointed

Appraisal

by Tim Marriott

Take Note Theatre, Epsilon Productions and Smokescreen Productions at the Theatre at the Tabard, Chiswick until 13^th April

Review by Andrew Lawston

As popular office humour puts it, meetings are the practical alternative to work.  Team meetings, interviews, catch-ups, one-to-ones, board meetings, committee meetings, follow-up meetings, pre-meeting meetings, and of course annual reviews and appraisals.  Even the biggest fan of meetings – which mostly take place on company time and generally involve sitting down and eating biscuits, after all – would have to admit that they are ripe for satirical exploitation.

Tim Marriott’s one-act play Appraisal takes no prisoners, lampooning corporate newspeak and office culture, while also exposing the vicious attitudes that can lie beneath contemporary office politics, disguised with smooth words and passive-aggressive posturing.

Over the course of a particularly tense hour, a senior manager takes a team leader through her annual appraisal.  Writing, directing and starring, Tim Marriott’s apparently blandly genial golfing fanatic manager Jo seems at first to be somewhat hapless, and the meeting to be a routine box-ticking exercise.

Angela Bull’s confident and assured Nicky at first appears defensive, and her occasional bristling hostility towards an apparently harmless management figure appears odd.

As Jo and Nicky continue to work through the appraisal document, however, cracks quickly begin to emerge, and it’s Jo who begins to appear defensive, and to have his favourites among the staff.  In the opening minutes, an apparently banal chat about a team member who has recovered from a workplace injury turns into a pointed statement from Jo that they’re no longer able to carry out their job function if they’re unable to climb a ladder.  This particular barb doesn’t apparently lead anywhere, but it effectively conveys to the audience that Jo is singularly ruthless, and has his own agenda.

The pair clash over a member of Nicky’s team, who does not appear to be performing, down to the level of poor timekeeping.  Jo suggests giving some of her workload to another team member, to Nicky’s irritation.

As the meeting progresses, Jo shows more flashes of irritation, and his agenda becomes clear.  He threatens to advertise Nicky’s job, and to side-line her into a meaningless invented role.  The mood darkens with hints of historical sexual harassment, and blackmail, and the sheer extent of Jo’s ruthlessness becomes clear.

Despite these darker topics and moments, Appraisal is a very funny piece filled with moments that will resonate with anyone who has ever participated in a workplace review process.  Marriott has written a highly-crafted play which whistles through its hour-long running time.  As a director, despite setting the action behind a solidly old-fashioned desk (which in itself seems indicative of Jo’s character), he sensibly has the characters frequently stand and roam around the Tabard Theatre’s small stage, using the space to its full potential and making this very wordy piece feel animated and fresh.

Both actors give marvellous performances, and Marriott has given Nicky some of the best lines.  Angela Bull imbues the character with assuredness and a quiet confidence in her professional worth, before later growing frustrated and even incredulous at Jo’s excesses, without ever backing down before him.  Marriott, performing his own lines, also gives an impressive performance.  The actor’s essential likeability keeps the audience guessing as to which of the two they ought to be rooting for in the play’s early stages, and hints at his darker nature are all the more effective as the audience realise they have been fooled by his affable manner.

Appraisal is a finely-tuned play that reflects some of the absurdities of the modern workplace, while providing some wonderful comic moments.  At its heart are two strong performances from characters who will be instantly recognisable from any office in the country.  An understated gem of a play.

Andrew Lawston, March 2024

Photography by Charles Flint