“Whips up an absolute treat full of wit, heart, and indulgent bittersweetness.”
Sara Bareilles and Jessie Nelson’s acclaimed and beloved musical ‘Waitress’ bakes up a storm in Glasgow under the direction of Diane Paulus. This production stars Lucie Jones as Jenna, a down-on-her-luck waitress and pie connoisseur at a local diner who dreams of escaping her abusive marriage and starting a new life. However, when she hears about a baking contest in a nearby county and starts to develop a crush on the new handsome doctor in town, her dreams have a chance to finally become realised.
Jones illustrates Jenna’s journey of rebuilding herself beautifully from the get-go; her vocals are powerful and expressive, which work wonders alongside her comedic timing, delivering to the audience a well-rounded and deep character. Jones effectively paints Jenna as someone who is perfectly imperfect, radiating so much authenticity and leaving such a lasting impression on the audience throughout the entire performance.
Jenna’s journey of rebuilding herself is accompanied by fellow waitresses Becky (Bernadatte Bangura) and Dawn (Evelyn Hoskins), who both deliver outstanding performances. Dawn’s physical comedy in particular was a highlight, as Hoskins took Dawn’s lovable awkwardness and eccentricity to the max.
In terms of other actors on the cast, Les Dennis as Old Joe (the owner of the diner) and Mark Anderson as Ogie (Dawn’s match on a dating site) were particular stand-outs, as both had quite minimal stage time yet delivered quite the impact; Dennis delivers Old Joe’s grumpy character flawlessly, but also adds a lot of heart to him and makes him memorable, and Anderson’s cranking of his character’s wackiness to the extreme leaves the audience in absolute stitches. Furthermore, it also helps that Dawn and Ogie had a lot of chemistry, so their coming together worked like a dream in its delivering of a comedic dynamic.
It is also worth noting that the set and props were incredible, transitions were seamless, and the sets were beautifully filled and immersive for their different locations; from the diner feeling like a lively place full of bustle and opportunity to Jenna’s home feeling small and almost oppressively old-fashioned, as if it was well past its prime (akin to her marriage), there was so much to appreciate visually. There were also props of baking ingredients, which gave the audience the impression that they were being part of Jenna’s process of baking her pies (which also looked so vibrant and delicious, even from afar), further enhancing that stage-to-audience connection.
The sound design also deserves its flowers, there were recurring motifs of the words “sugar, butter, flour” that would play whenever Jenna would think up a new pie recipe and privately contemplate on her life, and audio effects would be put onto other performers’ voices to make them muffled as if they were far away from Jenna even if they were standing right next to her; truly fantastic.
‘Waitress’ executes the balance of hilarity, heartfelt moments and heartbreak spectacularly; there is so much emotional connection to be explored in its world and its characters, as the play demonstrates themes of motherhood, romantic relationships alongside your relationship with yourself wonderfully. This production fully deserves its praiseful scoring and is sure to leave you feeling hopeful in an imperfect world, where joy can be found in the simplest of places, even in a pie.
The show runs until Saturday 10th October 2026 at the King’s Theatre venue in Glasgow. Tickets are available here.