★★★★

“Nefar has an infectious energy that easily commands the room”

‘My English Persian Kitchen’ takes its audience on a journey through time and space, from the loving Iranian childhood of its nameless protagonist (Isabella Nefar), to her dramatic escape from an abusive marriage, to finding her feet alone in London. Based on the life story of cookbook author and nutritional therapist Atoosa Sepehr, writer Hannah Khalil weaves these strands together through food. The Persian cuisine serves as a source of nostalgia, pride, and most of all, a crucial link to both the character’s family and her new community in England.

The woman is already chopping herbs as the audience walks into the auditorium, anchored behind a large wooden kitchen island, its open shelves stuffed with various kitchen utensils and spices. In Pip Terry’s evocative set, a small light hangs overhead, an awkwardly tall fridge stands forlornly in the background. The lights dim and the protagonist starts talking as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, relaxed, upbeat, and excited to share the smells of her spices, she makes for a perfect cook show host. But as her kitchen gets messier, so does the chef’s mind – plagued by the trauma of fleeing her native country on a moment’s notice, by memories of the oppressive marriage she ‘sleepwalked’ into, and the thought of the family and friends she left behind in Iran, Nefar impressively switches between seemingly lighthearted cooking instructions and narrating the darkest moments in her character’s life.

Nefar has an infectious energy that easily commands the room, never wanting for another performer to help carry the load. Guided, no doubt, by director Chris White and movement director Jess Tucker Boyd, she constantly interacts with the space and the set in unexpected ways that uphold the momentum she so expertly builds. However, Nefar’s is not strictly the only character – the ash-e-reshteh comes alive as she prepares it live on stage, and in just over an hour, the theatre is filled with the delicious smell of frying onions and herbs. As the ingredients drip and sizzle, they conjure up memories that leave the cook with no choice but to reveal more and more of herself, the constituent parts of her dish acting almost as conversationalists.

But the fragrant smells of this Persian noodle soup are not the only element to pander to the senses. Mary Langthorne’s lighting design is both effective and cinematic. The warm yellow light in which the woman is bathed as she cooks is cosy, but the stark circle around her also manages to evoke her loneliness. Cleverly using the dark to her advantage, Langthorne effortlessly transforms the character’s kitchen into an airport, a childhood home, or a private nightmare. In a few instances, almost complete darkness on stage obscures the kitchen entirely, momentarily transporting the character to wherever Nefar takes her.

The woman struggles to connect to the ‘politely disinterested’ people she meets in London until her neighbours start asking after the delicious smells that emanate from her flat: sharing her food allows her to share her culture and something of herself. The audience being invited to taste the ash-e-reshteh after the curtain falls could not be a more fitting, heartwarming, and (frankly) hotly anticipated ending to this original and hopeful show.

THE CHAOS THAT HAS BEEN AND WILL NO DOUBT RETURN

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★★

“There is humour in abundance – terrible gin, awkward meet-cutes, frantic booze runs – but Edmunds also weaves in harder truths”

One night in Luton. Sounds like hell. But it’s going to be a trip.

There will be tears. There will be laughter. You will make friends and say goodbye.

But don’t be frightened, two best mates – familiar because they’re everyone’s best mate ¬– are taking us on a tour both of their own turf and their outlook in writer-director Sam Edmunds dazzling, vibrant and rocking anthem to teenage kicks.

It’s sometime in the 2000s. A house party is the frame – we’re going from pre-drinks bravado to dazed aftermath – but what Chalk Line Theatre delivers is an odyssey into the heart of a community, co-directed with Vikesh Godhwani and performed with unrelenting, heart-pounding gusto.

This is Under Milk Wood for millennials.

Nathaniel Christian and Elan Butler – both remarkable for their stamina and craft – explode onto the stage, whipping up the audience before we have even caught our breath. Leanne Henlon joins them in a carousel of cameos: mums, mates, corner-shop clerks, each sketched with quick wit and affectionate precision.

Rob Miles’s set of looming brick blocks doubles as playground, alley, shop and living room, while Matteo Depares’s sound design adds percussive punch to accompany chest-thumps and fist-bangs.

It is high-energy stuff, rattling along at 100 miles an hour. The dancing is contagious. The flirting gorgeous. The bond between the bros becomes one we love and share, and the audience is part of the gang from the outset, the trio exuding charm through clouds of Lynx Africa, fist-bumping their new pals in the front row.

The text is rich in 00s detail: Tinie Tempah on tinny speakers, Blackberrys buzzing in pockets, fake Ralph Laurens worn like armour. There is humour in abundance – terrible gin, awkward meet-cutes, frantic booze runs – but Edmunds also weaves in harder truths. Debt as a weight. Futures clouded by recession, tuition fees, and the claustrophobic squeeze of austerity Britain. Adults dream of better, but as one character notes, “People round here walk as if they are being held back.”

What keeps the play aloft is its refusal to demonise. It never pillories working-class kids on council estates; instead, it honours their energy, humour and ¬– above all – hope. Hope is the dope.

If there is fury, it comes from fear; if there is violence, it is the consequence of deprivation. The writing is affectionate, sharp, and sometimes filthy but everyone in the audience recognises something from their own youth in this pick’n’mix panorama of bluster and pain.

The cast’s commitment is total. Narrator Christian sustains the pace, anchoring the whirlwind with charisma and warmth. He is our Captain Cat, seeing through windows and into souls. Butler – with a cheerful loping melancholy – bounces between bravado and vulnerability, Henlon dazzles with her versatility, dancer, temptress, bully. Together they radiate raw joy. Even when tragedy strikes, the finale brims with uplift. It is impossible not to leave smiling.

This is theatre as rallying cry. Against knife crime, against despair, for pride of place and community, for ground-up revolution. Chalk Line has an excellent track record but The Chaos That Has Been and Will No Doubt Return feels like the clincher.

MY ENGLISH PERSIAN KITCHEN

Soho Theatre

★★★★

“Nefar has an infectious energy that easily commands the room”

MY ENGLISH PERSIAN KITCHEN

Soho Theatre

Reviewed on 2nd October 2025

by Lola Stakenburg

Photography by Ellie Kurttz

Previously reviewed at Soho Theatre venues:

MY ENGLISH

MY ENGLISH

MY ENGLISH

THE CHAOS THAT HAS BEEN AND WILL NO DOUBT RETURN

Southwark Playhouse Borough

★★★★★

“There is humour in abundance – terrible gin, awkward meet-cutes, frantic booze runs – but Edmunds also weaves in harder truths”

THE CHAOS THAT HAS BEEN AND WILL NO DOUBT RETURN

Southwark Playhouse Borough

Reviewed on 4th September 2025

by Giles Broadbent

Photography by Harry Elletson

Recently reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues:

THE CHAOS

THE CHAOS

THE CHAOS

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