FEEDING THE MIND

I have come to the conclusion that one never really knows when theatre is not good, only when it is brilliant. The same, I think, is true of restaurants. Too often we are held captive and served by players who seem to ignore us and carry on with their own unfolding dramas, disregarding our presence. In too many restaurants sullen or over-enthusiastic staff assume that the favour is all theirs for deigning to feed us. Like so much theatre, any questioning of the outcome is greeted with derision or contempt.

I have seen a lot of theatre recently. First in London. Dished up was an apple-stuffed boar’s head of a King Lear at the Globe. It was like being captive at an Elizabethan re-enactment banquet. The only tragedy about this production being that I couldn’t escape for two hours. The Globe sorely misses Mark Rylance.

Michael Frayn’s Afterlife was slightly overcooked and consequently a bit tough to chew. And the scrumptious Simon Russell-Beale in A Slight Ache, also at the National, lent a fresh twist of lemon to the dark flavours of Pinter’s imaginative world. But the triumph of the current playlist amuse bouches had to be the fragrant Penelope Wilton and fruity Margaret Tysack in The Chalk Garden at the Donmar. Confident, generous acting. The best. Strange to think that it’s the old favourites who win the day.

Great actors spend so much time giving to us, the audience. It is a generous and brave thing to throw yourself on the mercy of an audience, give them a story and hope they will accompany you on the imaginative journey. But it is that very empathy which makes a great production. Watching actors strutting on stage, indifferent to the role of the audience in the theatre is like trying to catch the attention of a supercilious waiter.

And in the best restaurants you never get treated like that. Like audience and actor, both food and service make eating out special. In May I was lucky to get house seats at the RSC Histories at The Roundhouse in Camden – almost 24 hours of theatre spread across four days. Extraordinary, powerful, exhilarating and ennervating. During every interval I would nip across the road to a delightful organic cafe called My Village on Chalk Farm Road for fresh squeezed juices, coffee and tabouleh salads. Run by twins, they always welcome me back like an old friend every time. So you go back, as I did the other day, walking an extra mile to the place where I know they will care for me. With places like this to go to, why bother with the second-rate?

In the words of Simon Callow, an actor who gives everything, ‘life is too short to take in the half-baked when there are so many tasty meals available.’ For a traditional and stunning feast his Dickens show currently running at the Assembly Rooms is watching a master at work. A perfectly rested roast, oozing in thickening gravies.

Get tickets for Zinnie Harris' Fall at the Traverse, The Tailor of Inverness at Assembly and Frieda Kahlo at Hillside.

TENDER WORDS

Tender (2009) tells the story of Nigel Slater's love affair with his garden in Islington and the many seedlings he has raised in his box-hedged vegetable patches. It’s a magnificent volume, like a medieval knightly treatise with pictures of his Eden, its produce and many of the recipes he has created from them.

23 May, 2010

FOOD FROM THE HEART

Cooking is a basic human instinct. We’ve been eating, chopping, shaping, flavouring, enticing ingredients into something delicious since time began. But as the way many of us live has changed, the basic skills we require to cook, are no longer valued and it’s often easier to let others take control of what we eat.

21 April, 2010

IN A RIGHT FISH STEW

This week we had sustainable fish stew. It’s a quick and easy way to feed a gang of hungries on a Friday night and doesn’t need much else but some good bread and wine. Like all stews, you need balance, rich liquid and a range of potent flavours steaming from your pot.

15 March, 2010