Various genres of television coverage now seem to be conceived
entirely for prurience, and are often described as "property porn",
"food porn" etc. Food, staged
by theimaginarybody [sic],
relies to an extent on our collective grounding in this culture for its
basic interest. Protagonist Frank (the ever-fine Sean Campion) is a
driven man. He is aesthetically and ethically driven by a kind of
culinary purism, refusing to mix flavours modishly so that he can
describe his dishes as "irreproachable", but also under pressure to
maintain his place in the national food culture: to obtain and then
retain his restaurant's third Michelin star, to create a range of ready
meals that don't prostitute his name and so on. He grows edgier and
edgier – in fact, it looks not unlike cocaine paranoia. Joel Horwood's
script has some nice conceits and turns of phrase, although
occasionally it overplays its hand. The dramatic setting, though, is a
mixed blessing: there is no dramatic reason why one needs to have
bought into contemporary foodism in order to engage with Frank's
tragedy, but as a non-participant in the culture I nevertheless felt
somewhat excluded from the emotional heft of the play.
Emotional heft is largely missing from Evelyne de la
Chenelière's Strawberries in
January. It's a four-way love tangle, with each party
reinventing him- or herself and attempting to refashion at least one of
the others in the process. Roxana Silbert's production is light and
amusing, as is the play in Rona Munro's translation; with the right
marketing it could become the new Art.
Frankly,
this is my problem. After Art,
Heroes and now this, I am
beginning to wonder if I will ever again see a contemporary play from
the French which is other than a 90-minute confection lightly dusted
with emotional and psychological truisms. An unreasonable prejudice, I
know, especially since Strawberries
originates from Québec rather than France. No doubt there are
several counter-examples elsewhere on the Fringe this year. Well, then,
I should probably get searching.
Written for the Financial Times.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights reserved.
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