Review: Hallelujah, Theatre 503

Written for The Stage

If ever a play had its finger on the pulse, it is Jane Bodie’s wry funeral parlour comedy. From Alexandra Burke to recent snowstorms, Hallelujah’s exploration of the current economic climate is packed with cultural references of the past few months.

A fortnight after his suicide - a six-storey plummet in the slipstream of his finances - Frank’s body remains in the freezer awaiting a burial that will cost at least £2,600. Outside, in the relative’s waiting room, his son Martin (Mark Arends), mistress Edna (Aoife McMahon) and first wife Brenda (Joanne Howarth) are fighting with faux-grief and bickering over payment.

Using the gradual hollowing out of Leonard Cohen’s modern hymn Hallelujah, from Buckley to Burke, Bodie suggests a society tarted up, devoid of care, content or concern for the future. Though there are some loosely-tied ends within, Hallelujah is so rooted in the present that its shortcomings can be overlooked in favour of its sharpness.

Lorna Ritchie’s witty design of nauseating pastel shades and air-freshener neatly compliments Bodie’s gently scathing tone, while director Gemma Fairlie keeps the pace snappy throughout.

Despite occasionally doing too much, Arends, McMahon and Howart prove a quirky trio with a comfortable chemistry that steers the play away from its slight tendency to resemble a three-sided debate.