OUR VERDICT
If you are greeted by an usher with the words ‘do you have any food allergies we should be aware of?’ then you are likely to be in for something special. This was Toast, the autobiographical show about the TV chef Nigel Slater. Already a bestselling book, and a film featuring Helena Bonham Carter with a pleasingly cod-Wolverhampton accent, it might have been a tough act to follow. Director Jonnie Riordan’s genius was to make this a four-dimensional experience for the Theatre. Hence the Usher’s greeting. The excitement built: we were to be fed!
Fittingly the backdrop was a kitchen, and as my 18-year old daughter companion, an A-Level drama student, explained, it was a ‘semi-naturalistic box-set’. Who knew? (To be fair she did lower the average age somewhat. The demographic inevitably reflected watchers of TV cookery programmes.) What I noticed were the 1960s floral carpet tiles and a predominance of beige. The toaster, pre-loaded with white-sliced loaf, sat atop a bilious green fridge which neatly doubles as an entrance. Dad music (as my teenager called it) marked the transitions; the type of rock ’n’ roll heard on the radio if you were a kid in the 1950s and 60s. It looked comforting and nostalgic but with an ominous edge. The cheery Chuck Berry couldn’t quite offset something slightly stale, like that smell when a packet of glace cherries has got stuck down the back of a drawer.
This show is as well-greased as a Christmas cake tin. No soggy bottoms here; the use of the stage was crisp, a cordon bleu ensemble of the excellent cast of five. (Ok! Enough, already!) The broken fourth wall allowed a narration by the pubescent Nigel (a golden Giles Cooper in multiple ways) as he grew into his calling as a chef, prompted by the grief for his loving mother, a traditional mid-twentieth Century English cook who did a great mince pie but defaulted most days to the eponymous toast, and who had an antipathy for anything exotic or déclassé. (Horror-struck by Ketchup!). Nigel’s love for this doubtful culinary matriarch was held in tension with hatred for his step-mother Joan, and her legendary lemon meringue pie, which soared to the height of a modest skyscraper. (Spoiler alert: I hope you’ve got a sweet tooth). Lizzie Muncey was elegantly inhibited as Nigel’s ailing mum and Marie Lawrence glowed as the archly seductive Joan, the social-climbing cleaner-turned-step-mum. Stephen Ventura as Nigel’s Dad was the epitome of twentieth-century provincial English masculinity, alternately repressed, rageful and ultimately emasculated by anything from a shirtless gardener to sweets called ‘fairy drops’. All the cast (apart from the evergreen Cooper) morphed seamlessly into other characters. Jake Ferretti was particularly impressive as he sashayed between a ten-year-old friend of Nigel’s called Worrell and Josh, a smooth, sexy ballet dancer, Nigel’s first love.
Which brings us on to the main premise of Toast, the symbiotic displacement behaviours and the creativity inspired by love, loss, food and sex. The precise execution under the direction of the clearly talented Riordan handles these ingredients with a gastro gusto. (Couldn’t resist). The use of moving trolley cabinets allowed for some frenetic choreography, maybe slightly overdone at times. The dancing atop twirling worktops made me feel slightly nauseous although the cast seemed to have stronger stomachs. But maybe it was all the lemon sherbets I ate. Craftily, the smells improved as the show went on and by the end, we were wafted with garlic and herbs. It is a full sense-around treat. Theatre and cookery masterclasses meet.
We saw it at ‘The Other Palace’ in Victoria before it transfers to Richmond. I’m sure it will do well here. All in all, we loved it. It even passed the A-level theatre studies test. Good for all ages, then. And if in doubt, just tell your kids about the free confectionary. Credit finally goes to Nigel Slater, whose storytelling has the gravitas to do justice to the state of English provincial emotional repression, teenage sexual danger and a culinary escape act. Food is so often how love, such as it is, finds expression. And hate too. Which turns out to be much the same thing. And if all that seems a bit obscure, then at least there’s a walnut whip to lick.
Toast will be at Richmond Theatre 21-26 October 2019. (book here)
