Tag Archives: Kieran Lucas

Gastronomic

★★★★★

Shoreditch Town Hall

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Gastronomic

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

 

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Dietrich – Natural Duty
★★★★

Wilton’s Music Hall

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Dietrich - Natural Duty

Dietrich – Natural Duty

Wilton’s Music Hall

Reviewed – 19th November 2018

★★★★

“Groom’s is an assured and understated performance in which he deftly uncovers Dietrich’s often overlooked private life”

 

It is 1942. On the battlefields of North Africa, in a gold sequin gown, Marlene Dietrich takes to the stage to fight the war her way. Peter Groom re-enacts this in his one man show, Dietrich – Natural Duty, uncannily resembling Dietrich, or rather the illusory image of Dietrich that we all know and love. But this show is much, much more than an impersonation.

Using the artform of cabaret, Peter Groom gives us a potted history of the “the most famous German woman in the world”; born in Berlin, who becomes a huge Hollywood star. Groom concentrates on the war years when Dietrich’s homeland changes and she is forced to make the difficult choice of renouncing her German citizenship. This approach has the potential of becoming dangerously dull, but Peter Groom is a rare talent. He doesn’t preach or fall into the trap of exposition for one moment. Instead he gets right to the core, capturing the essence and the passion, ultimately delivering a short show that has the emotional impact of the war poems.

Wilton’s Music Hall is a perfect setting for this act. Groom enters and strikes up with ‘I Can’t Give You Anything But Love’. The show is interrupted by an imaginary interviewer which enables Groom to add humour to the poignancy, revealing the dismissive and self-deprecatory side of Dietrich too. Her observations about Hollywood, her disdain for method acting are perceptive, frank and hilarious. “I did as I was told and counted in my head until it was all over” she famously said of her work ethic on set, “… but maybe that’s sex for some people”.

It is one-liners like these that help make the show, and Groom has the unrivalled knack of throwing them away. He doesn’t milk the paradoxes; instead, with a deadpan delivery, he talks of Marlene being ‘relegated’ back to being a movie star after the war ends. It is one word in a split second, in which Groom summarises Dietrich’s spirit. She always referred to the ‘movie star’ as a different person, separate from the one noted for her humanitarian efforts during the war. What this show reveals is the personal cost of her decisions; the agonising choice of allying herself to the US – bombing the city in which her mother is still living. But if she doesn’t do this, Hitler might win. She could never go back to Germany – she tried to in the 1960s, but she was booed off stage as a traitor; bombs were put in the theatres.

Groom’s is an assured and understated performance in which he deftly uncovers Dietrich’s often overlooked private life. “Look me over closely, tell me what you see” he sings in his gorgeous, velvet falsetto. Dietrich’s best-known tunes are all here, including a heart-rending “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?”. The only reservation I have is the invisible accompaniment: I did wish, at times, for an onstage pianist. But when Groom tail ends the show with “Falling In Love Again” all is forgiven, and you do fall in love again; with the artist, the show. And with Dietrich.

 

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Veronika Marx

 


Dietrich – Natural Duty

Wilton’s Music Hall until 24th November

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:
Songs For Nobodies | ★★★★ | March 2018
A Midsummer Night’s Dream | ★★★½ | June 2018
Sancho – An act of Remembrance | ★★★★★ | June 2018
Twelfth Night | ★★★ | September 2018

 

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