Hope Has a Happy Meal review

Set in a nightmarish hyper-capitalist state almost indistinguishable from contemporary Britain, Tom Fowler’s dark, surreal new comedy is equal parts quirky road-movie and biting satire. Directed with wit and energy by Lucy Morrison, the story follows bolshy, kind-hearted Hope as she journeys back to the country of her birth to discover, following a corporate takeover, that it is now renamed as the People’s Republic of Koka Kola.

We soon learn that Hope is searching for the son whom she abandoned as an infant, decades earlier, in a branch of McDonald’s. Along the way, she gathers an entourage of desperate misfits, all damaged in their own ways by the dehumanising authoritarian system in which they live, and all searching for family and a purpose beyond material consumption.

It all unfolds with the daft, disjointed logic of a dream, full of sudden, unlikely plot twists and surreal asides. One memorable sequence sees a character’s internalised self-loathing manifested as a nightmarish, circus-themed gameshow, complete with a spinning “wheel of tortures”, where a seedy Ronald McDonald-ish host makes her list the reasons why everyone in her life hates her.

As Hope, Laura Checkley makes a relatable protagonist, thoroughly likeable despite her complicated past and questionable choices. There’s a compellingly nervy, evasive quality to Checkley’s characterisation; though Hope is effusively talkative, she reveals almost nothing about her past or her motivations. Mary Malone stands out as complicated, fragile Isla, working part-time as a waitress to support her baby nephew, who she’s raising after her sister died in suspicious circumstances. Isla can be glib and sassy but she’s fiercely protective, and an open-hearted tenderness underpins Malone’s delicate performance.
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