Lil Saffron: Ragu To Riches
at Edinburgh Festival Fringe
★★★
“Kunze is an energetic and charming comedian, and gives Ragú to Riches his all”
Comedian Michael Kunze dons his chef’s hat for a wildly improbable sixty minute trip into the life of Lil Saffron, a rapping curator of the culinary arts in search of the perfect ingredient to restore the family honour. You see, his grandma’s famous ragú has lost its Michelin stars. Part panto, part stand up, part — like a ragú, this show is mixed together with so many ingredients that it’s a bit difficult to tell what the finished dish is supposed to be. It isn’t vegetarian, and Lil Saffron isn’t vegan friendly, I can tell you that.
In Ragú to Riches we’re here to marvel at the lively script of a man in search of his life’s calling: to be a chef even his granny could be proud of. But things get off to a poor start when Saffron inadvertently poisons his granny with his latest dish, and the food inspector discovers what looks like a corpse stretched out on a dining table in granny’s restaurant. Oh dear. Lots of raps and appalling puns later, Lil Saffron has located a missing talking cow, fallen in love with a vegetable, rescued his secret ingredient from a slaughterhouse (the plot got a bit confused there), slaughtered a rat named Ratatouille (what?), revived his granny, and restored the Michelin stars. Wow! It really is like panto! And the audience ate it up.
Ragú to Riches is a one man show, although what self-respecting rapper would ever be on stage without his DJ (able support in the corner there from Kyle, aka Hugh Edwards)? So it’s mostly Kunze performing all the roles, including Lil Saffron, his Granny, the evil Food Inspector who takes away Granny’s stars, and the even more evil Donald McRonald (Donny Ron) who sends Saffron off on a quest to find the mythical secret ingredient for Saffron’s ragú by way of locating a talking cow. Oh, and there’s a vegetable love interest with a Scottish accent. That’s an edgy choice in Edinburgh. Kunze’s natural Californian accent tends to peek through even when speaking Italian American, and it’s not a natural mix with rapping, but what the hey. Americans are usually pretty chill about these kinds of things. And Kunze had a loyal and appreciative audience at the Mash House the evening I was there.
Seriously, Kunze is an energetic and charming comedian, and gives Ragú to Riches his all. But perhaps that’s a bit too much. Lil Saffron needs to put in a bit more work on editing the recipe, and polishing the performance skills. Kunze’s got a good gimmick as the rapping pasta chef, but the proof, as they say in the old country, is always in the pudding, and not in the ragú.
Reviewed 5th August 2022
by Dominica Plummer
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