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Review: Fully Committed

The show that put the Chocolate Factory on London's cultural map 10 years ago.

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Becky Mode's below-stairs New York comedy about the man who mans the phones in an upmarket restaurant was the show that put the Chocolate Factory on London's cultural map 10 years ago. To mark a decade in the biz, the venue revives the manic solo play with Mark Setlock, who starred in 2004, directing, and Kevin Bishop performing the breathless, uninterrupted 70-minute play.

His default role is mild mannered out-of work actor Sam, but he also has to portray the utterly insufferable customers Sam talks to on the phone. All are desperate to land a table at the most chi chi restaurant in town. In a fraction of a New York minute Sam has to glean whether they are a VIP - such as "Naomi's" coke-sniffing personal assistant who demands that the restaurant light bulbs be changed - or just a P.

The brilliant Bishop doesn't just do the voices. He inhabits each character, such as the shrill, high-maintenance repeat callers whose sense of entitlement is matched only by their snobbery. Then in a blink of an eye he is back either as Sam, or as the merciless chef whose term for "fully booked" is the new rule that lends the play its title. With such a smorgasbord of roles and accents, there is probably no other play that currently makes such demands on its actor.

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