Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Josie Sedgwick-Davies, Emily Woosey, Lucy Harris, Tom Harrington, Nick Crosbie, Jamie Brownson.

Change happens, it might be overnight, it could be over a decade; however, eventually all things must change. The trouble is at times adjustment happens because of outside influences, the world forces transformation at a quickening pace and people get left behind as they struggle to come to terms with the new situation that has come along. For those that are fortunate, transformation happens on their own terms and they are able to carry on kicking against the world with a smile on their face. For the staff of a small family run bakery in Warrington, change is inevitable in Alex Joynes’ new play Half Baked.

For the young bakers and waiters that work in Rene’s, change is the chance to grow, to become something new and see the butterfly that resides in their soul, fluttering wildly against the storm brewing as unemployment in a northern town becomes a possibility, take flight and push harder against a system that at times does all that it can to beat them into submission. From cake makers Emma and Cher to supervisor Mia through to the front of house staff and oven fixer Josh, change is happening.

The Young Everyman/Playhouse Theatre makers have created some truly wondrous pieces over the last few years and Half Baked is no exception to the rule. Alex Joynes’s script is one that captures the very soul of the sudden extinction of the family run business as the market place becomes saturated with clone copies coffee houses, and cloned staff, the necessity and beauty of individuality discarded and tossed aside. Despite all the laughter that came forth from a greatly talented cast, it is the stirring emotion of just how badly treated this particular generation has been treated by  the rest of us that we offer them dreams and then cruelly snatch them away in the name of the economy that is left once the lights go up.

As would be expected of anything that comes out of the Y.E.P. production team, Half Baked is a play that frames the message perfectly but also allows the cast, its writer and directors the time in which to search for that vital truth. For Nick Crosbie, playing the nerve ridden and anxious Simon, it is a play in which he comes to the forefront of the stage yet again, his sense of timing and ability to show the most demanding of facial movements is a delight and with Jamie Brownson playing the role of the young transgendered and dreaming Cher, Half Baked has all the right ingredients in which a great evening out is fully enjoyed.

The world always seems to be against those taking a chance, especially the young as they get derided for not living in the so called real world, however whether it is the superb team behind Y.E.P. or the young person on the street with a dream, surely they deserve more help to be individual rather than yet another cog on a rusting machine.

Half Baked is so well presented it deserves a stand all of its own.

Ian D. Hall