THERE are several definitions of the term Pot Licker, and the one that describes mischievous Icelandic Yule Lads pranksters fits Dorset-based playwright Ed Viney’s play extremely well. Just as the Yule Lad licks a pot clean, leaving not a morsel behind, so Viney explores the fate of three school teachers who, faced with the problem of what to do with a sports bag that they believe is full of drugs, find themselves lost in a labyrinth of personal relationships, work and ethics.

Unfulfilled history teache rRich (Dan Gaisford), Kris (Charlie Coldfield), forever apologising for his public school, upper class background, and the ambitious Zara (Monika Brodowska), who has deserted teaching within a failing school for an executive position, open their personal relationships to close scrutiny as they reveal the problems facing teachers in the present era.

Calling on his own background in education, Viney, with some deliciously sardonic dialogue, tells us what a big part office politics plays for anyone wanting to climb the greasy pole to success and power.

All of this changes in a flash just before the interval, when the play takes a sharp right angle turn and becomes an extremely funny comedy thriller. The actors, under tight direction from the author, handle the violent change of direction skilfully, proving themselves very adept at handling comedy dialogue and situations. And, as the second act picks up from the first, it looks as if comedy thriller is going to be the name of the game.

Very quickly however, the bleakness of Zoe Barnish’s setting – a bare stage with one small stark white table and a chair – return, as the many of the themes examined in such detail in the first act return to intertwine with personal and moral challenges as the three teachers have to make up their minds to go down the profitable-if-dishonest road via that drug-filled sports bag, or to make the most of their honest, probably never-to-be-fulfilled, lives.

Certainly this cast and director were more than capable of handling the challenges offered by either road. In the end we are left with the feeling that even having gone over the same ground once too often, the author was either not sure, or perhaps preferred to leave the choice to the audience.

Were we Pot Lickers who sneaked into a house to eat the leftovers? Or had the play been far more fulfilling, leaving us satisfied and contented at having licked the last drop of favourable liquid from a pot that had cooked delicious green vegetables?

GRP