Bingo, however you call it

EVERYBODY LOVES A WINNER, Royal Exchange Theatre for the Manchester International Festival, by Paul Genty

Eyes down, and let’s look into terminology.

I think it’s best if we call writer and director Neil Bartlett’s MIF contribution an “entertainment”, rather than a play; insist on the latter and I’d have to call it the sloppiest, worst-written play I’ve seen in years.

It’s a work with going-nowhere, unattractive characters, a patronising premise, no plot, little development and about an hour’s worth of performance time it could well do without.

On the other hand, plays don’t offer the chance to leave the theatre £200 richer.

“Everybody Loves a Winner” exists because Bartlett wanted to offer the audience the chance to take part in the event — and in MIF terms, the “event” is everything.

Here it is cleverly conceived: set the show in a bingo hall, give the audience the chance to play, have a final game that pays the winner for real.

The theatre even got a gaming licence so it could (separately) sell game tickets, offer cash and have slot machines in the foyer.

A cast of 20 plays manageress (Sally Lindsay, beautifully cast but terribly written), caller (Ian Puleston Davies, ditto), three staff and predominantly female customers, most of whom are wasted.

The trouble starts once we go beyond the game into Bartlett’s theorising about why people play.

Bingo, he muses, is almost a religious experience: we go in hope and though we lose, we maintain faith that next time we might win.

This musing comes in unison chanting from the players and long and remarkably repetitive talks to the audience, mainly by caller Frank, a desperately unhappy man.

Thus it takes the show over two and a half hours to play three houses of bingo (one by the cast, a practice game for the audience and the final money game).

But then this is really not about bingo, more about a slightly snooty view of the people who play it — significantly, most of the audience admitted to not having played before.

Bartlett’s superficial ideas about gambling apply just as easily to any other type: bingo simply makes it an indoors event, and that’s what matters.

I just wish he had written a play while he was at it.