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Gastronomic

Shoreditch Town Hall

Reviewed – 26th September 2019

★★★★★

“a smorgasbord brimming with light and shade, tension and reflection, and poetic language and cheesy jokes, leaving you fully satisfied by its end”

‘We cater for everything’, Nora explains, as she waxes lyrical on the beauty of gastronomy to the audience, framed as passengers on a long-haul flight. The speech is delivered through headphones that we each wear, accompanied by pulsing, transcendent music, while the lights flicker in a hypnotic canon. All the while, we’re consuming the most thematically prescient and tongue-igniting Yorkshire puddings perhaps to have ever graced the stage. I think it’s safe to say that Nora isn’t wrong.

Gastronomic centres on three chefs – Nora (Georgina Strawson), Luca (Craig Hamilton), and Agat (Ani Nelson) – catering for a first-class long-haul flight from Mumbai to Heathrow. The audience, as the passengers, subsequently get to enjoy the seven courses they produce, while their interactions reveal that their intentions may not be as clear-cut as they seem; flashbacks slowly reveal a story that’s truly about the necessity of connection and empathy between humans, and the ways in which we express it. The poignancy of this main plot is excellently counterbalanced in a parallel narrative where the actors instead play Border Control personnel, sharing banter and interacting with the audience, while also carrying an undercurrent of unsteadiness that erupts in its culmination. The devised script from curious directive (conceived by Jack Lowe) is a smorgasbord brimming with light and shade, tension and reflection, and poetic language and cheesy jokes, leaving you fully satisfied by its end.

However, Gastronomic’s script is only one of its myriad of facets. The food (prepared chiefly by head chef Clyde Ngounou and sous-chef Daniel Spirlinng) isn’t just there as a cheap gimmick – each course ties directly into the story, created as a result of the characters’ experiences and histories. At one point, Nora reminisces about what made her drop an ice cream on Brighton pier, while we devour End of Brighton Pier – what appears to be an ice cream cone but is actually deconstructed fish and chips – allowing us to essentially taste the memory. The ways in which the food manifests the psychology of the characters as well as the script’s linguistic imagery is truly staggering, and makes for a sensory experience like no other. Thankfully, every single course is also delicious, a particular highlight being the supernova of autumnal flavours that Sherwood Forest delivered.

The multi-sensory nature of the show doesn’t stop there, though. Due to the headphones being worn by the audience, it allows the sound mix (designed by Kieran Lucas) to be incredibly cinematic. The actors are free to speak as intimately as they wish, giving a surrendering sensitivity to some of the more heart-wrenching moments, while also being able to take it to the other extreme and embrace the theatricality of other scenes, which is a balance that Hamilton especially was able to utilise spectacularly with his two hugely contrasting characters. When the next course is on its way, the speech is aviated by Theo Whitworth’s soul-searing compositions and flouresced by Ed Elbourne’s liminal lighting. Jack Lowe’s design and direction of the show has ensured that everything truly has been catered for; Gastronomic is a massage for every sense. The food isn’t just for the stomach, but for the mind and soul.

Reviewed by Ethan Doyle

Photography by Ali Wright

Gastronomic

Shoreditch Town Hall until 12th October

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Madhouse re:exit | ★★★½ | March 2018

The Nature of Forgetting | ★★★★ | April 2018

We can Time Travel | ★★★ | April 2018

Suicide Notes … The Spoken Word of Christopher Brett Bailey | ★★★½ | May 2018

These Rooms | ★★★★★ | June 2018

Busking It | ★★★★ | October 2018

Shift | ★★★★ | May 2019

Click here to see our most recent reviews

★★★

“praise should be given for facing stories of masculine brutality head-on”

Two men circle each other in a boxing ring; they spar, they wrestle, they laugh and, in a sense at least, they fight. The ropes that encircle the ring also encircle their lives, and by the end of performance, it’s clear that those ropes can’t contain them both.

Jade City, cleverly-named for both the local takeaway (with its £3.20 special) and a reference to the proximity of the Emerald Isle, is a two-man show from playwright Alice Malseed. Malseed hails from Belfast, where the play is set, and the whole production resonates with a sense of place. It opens with Monty (Barry Calvert) and Sas (Brendan Quinn) rattling off memories of their hometown. The Goliath crane, the Cregagh, Ormeau Road; cultural and local references which would be bound to strike powerful chords with those who know the city (and, as a nice touch, the Bunker is selling Tayto crisps). This densely-worded production is captioned throughout and in these quickfire exchanges it is invaluable (although at times distractingly serves to highlight deviations from the text, with whole lines missed, that can’t all be deliberate).

As we follow visits to the local, to Monty’s ‘stinking flat’, to the new bar in town, it’s clear that our two characters are knitted into their landscape, but passing references to their past indicate a troubling story. This unfolds, graphically and somewhat predictably, throughout the production. Some of the narrative is delivered via escapist role-plays, as Monty and Sas act out remembered or imagined situations. This is a helpful device, but it feels a bit hard to square the idea of lads who joke about times they’ve lobbed rocks at police and started fights also readily immersing themselves in shared childlike fantasies (‘We’re bin men!’). Given the narrative dwells on the toxicity and dishonesty of masculine posturing, this particular leap feels like a real ask of the audience, although passionate and likeable performances from Calvert and Quinn help.

The Bunker is a simple space in which to represent Belfast’s streets, pubs and clubs but clever lighting (Timothy Kelly) works hard, with strips around the boxing ring starkly setting up the stage and a sickly orange hue invoking the tacky-floored pub. Sound design from Michael Mormecha is also effective.

So many great components, then, but director Katherine Nesbitt isn’t quite able to unite them into a totally winning whole. One challenge is certainly the lyrical but heavy script, which feels like it’d be better served by being read on the page than seen performed. Another is the pacing; billed as a one-hour show, my performance ran 15 minutes over this and this extra time cost us tautness.

Rarely has a production had such a connection to a place; Belfast runs through Jade City like a stick of rock. In this regard, the play excels, and praise should be given for facing stories of masculine brutality head-on.

Reviewed by Abi Davies

Photography by Ali Wright

Shoreditch Town Hall

Reviewed – 26th September 2019

★★★★★

“a smorgasbord brimming with light and shade, tension and reflection, and poetic language and cheesy jokes, leaving you fully satisfied by its end”

Reviewed by Ethan Doyle

Photography by Ali Wright

Gastronomic

Shoreditch Town Hall until 12th October

Previously reviewed at this venue:

The Bunker

Reviewed – 5th September

★★★

“praise should be given for facing stories of masculine brutality head-on”

Two men circle each other in a boxing ring; they spar, they wrestle, they laugh and, in a sense at least, they fight. The ropes that encircle the ring also encircle their lives, and by the end of performance, it’s clear that those ropes can’t contain them both.

Rarely has a production had such a connection to a place; Belfast runs through Jade City like a stick of rock. In this regard, the play excels, and praise should be given for facing stories of masculine brutality head-on.

Reviewed by Abi Davies

Photography by Ali Wright

Jade City

The Bunker until 21st September

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

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