The Pickle King is on now at the Han­nah Play­house and is a col­our­ful, quirky and unique tale of love, death and what is worth pre­serving.

Once the finest hotel in town, the Empire is now as faded as the dreams of the piano play­er who haunts the lobby. Ammachy runs the Empire with an iron fist and has one big prob­lem, her niece is blind and she will not be mar­ried. Sasha knows she must not marry because she is curse – everything she loves dies. Jeena is a heart sur­geon. How­ever, as a recent arrival from India the only work she can find is as a night port­er in the Empire.

The masked per­formers who set the scene and book-ended the play were unique and por­trayed emo­tion effect­ively.  For me, Vanessa Kumar when play­ing Ammachy was a standout char­ac­ter as well as Andrew Ford who played the Pickle King and brought high energy to his per­form­ance. How­ever, I found the romance between Jeena and Sasha to be a hard sell – I didn’t see the con­nec­tion or chem­istry between them.

The masks, cos­tumes, cre­at­ive use of the set, and ver­sat­il­ity of the per­formers were all excep­tion­al and makes the whole show very appeal­ing to the senses. Speak­ing of, the tal­en­ted pian­ist made for an inter­est­ing dynam­ic with this music­al abil­it­ies – it was also a cool touch that he was a ‘straight man char­ac­ter’ for the comedi­ans to play off.

The show is very fringey… which of course makes sense con­sid­er­ing it won the ‘Fringe First Award’ in 2003 at the Edin­burgh Fringe (one of many awards the show has won since first per­formed in 2002).

Over­all the show was very enjoy­able! It’s on until 9 Septem­ber – book your tick­ets today!