“It’s my creation – like Frankenstein’s monster”
It’s 2002: New Labour reigns, the Enron scandal intensifies, and she’s still just Mrs Parker-Bowles. The retro-futuristic sheen of the Y2K cultural revolution is in full swing, pulsing to the iPod beat of Grime and Nu-Metal. But in a fog-bound house, the world recedes and a dinner is served.
Paige is celebrating the publication of her husband’s self-help bestseller. Her menu is dramatic and deliberate, all served with the deeply attentive assistance of a vigilant waiter. The eclectic mix of guests – an artist, a scientist and a “news babe” – arrive as planned, until an unexpected stranger is disgorged from the darkness.
Knives and tongues sharpen as Aperitif pours into Starter, Starter smashes into Main, Main melts into Dessert. The fog closes in, secrets comes to the boil, questions bubble over: do you ever really know someone? Is the psychological apocalypse a cosmic wake up call? Can you really murder someone with pliers? And most urgently… any dietary requirements?
From Oliver Award-winning and BAFTA-nominated writer Moira Buffini, this wicked and witty snapshot of gender, power, social performance, British hypocrisy and the alarming possibilities of the internet is still as prescient, hilarious, and frightening now, in our world of social justice and social media, as it was in its 2002 National Theatre premiere. This major Off-West End revival is directed by David Fairs & Conor O’Kane (the 5-star Anything Is Possible If You Think About It Hard Enough at the Waterloo East Theatre, the 5-star Hole at the Old Red Lion Theatre, the sell-out Little Shop of Horrors at the Playhouse Theatre Derry).
