Too full
Lynn Freeman
No Taste Forever, Directed by David Lawrence, Bats Theatre, reviewed by Lynn Freeman
The West’s obsession with food is reflected on our screens – endless cooking shows and reality programmes about obesity interspersed with ads showing starving children in third world nations. Feast or famine.
Paul Rothwell’s play sees food conspiring to kill us through allergies, poisoning, overindulgence and body image generated starvation. Chocolate is a seductress and even lettuce holds hidden dangers.
In No Taste Forever, an extensive cast of characters fall victim to food, with Malcolm Sweet the dietician (Alex Grieg) leading a failing campaign to save them. Extensive is no exaggeration with 18 people on stage during the nearly two hour play. While this includes terrific actors, the brilliance of director David Lawrence and a typical Rothwell script that is both inventive and deeply disturbing, it’s all too much. Like the morbidly obese Galen (Jonny Potts) the script needs to go on a strict diet for it to realise its full potential. Expecting your audience to sit through so much without a break is also a mistake which even one of the messiest food fights in stage history can’t fix.
Lawrence’s direction is as risk taking as the script, his casting is spot on and it is too long since his Bacchanals have trod the stage.
The West’s obsession with food is reflected on our screens – endless cooking shows and reality programmes about obesity interspersed with ads showing starving children in third world nations. Feast or famine.
Paul Rothwell’s play sees food conspiring to kill us through allergies, poisoning, overindulgence and body image generated starvation. Chocolate is a seductress and even lettuce holds hidden dangers.
In No Taste Forever, an extensive cast of characters fall victim to food, with Malcolm Sweet the dietician (Alex Grieg) leading a failing campaign to save them. Extensive is no exaggeration with 18 people on stage during the nearly two hour play. While this includes terrific actors, the brilliance of director David Lawrence and a typical Rothwell script that is both inventive and deeply disturbing, it’s all too much. Like the morbidly obese Galen (Jonny Potts) the script needs to go on a strict diet for it to realise its full potential. Expecting your audience to sit through so much without a break is also a mistake which even one of the messiest food fights in stage history can’t fix.
Lawrence’s direction is as risk taking as the script, his casting is spot on and it is too long since his Bacchanals have trod the stage.
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