Theatre review: Table 17

Douglas Lyons' Table 17 opens with something of a personal theatrical nightmare for me: An announcement informing the audience that any time a character in the play asks a question, we are very much expected to answer it. The effect this has probably varies from performance to performance but, combined with the glitterball and pre-show soundtrack of hen night favourites, tonight it resulted in an evening of whooping, heckling, gasping, shrieking and yaaaas queening to make a 1980s American sitcom audience sound demure. And that was just the teenage boys. The question is, under the noise, did the show itself have much to say? A couple of years after their breakup, Dallas (Jamael Westman) has invited his ex-fiancée Jada (Marisha Wallace) out for a drink. We open with Jada fretting over what to wear for an evening that may or may not be a date.Jumping between scenes together and asides to the audience about how they really feel under the awkwardness and bluster, the play also flashes…