With the recent announcement of the closure of Soho denizen Wardour News, a play about the final days of a crumbling Soho institution seems to take on a new significance. With the small difference that fictional Christine Foskett of Absolute Hell is not forced to close her doors due to rent hikes or gentrification, but because the building is literally falling apart. Still, both seem to symbolise the end of an era, and the change in the fabric of a community. Foskett's club, La Vie en Rose (the Pink Room of the play's original title) is the favoured spot of gaggle of Soho luvvies: artists, film-types, G.Is and society ladies, a place where anything goes and all sexual preferences are welcome. 

Over the course of three hours, playwright Rodney Ackland introduces us to the lives and lusts of the club's clientele, set against the backdrop of a recovering, post-war Britain, on the eve of a Labour victory.  The play originally opened in 1952, closing after three weeks of biting criticism. It was only in the 1980s, when theatre censorship was a thing of the past, that Absolute Hell (as it was then renamed) had another chance in the limelight, with significant cuts and rewrites. Despite these, the play retains its epic proportions: a sprawling tableau of London in 1945, with over 21 characters mooching on and offstage.

The company Photo: Johan Persson

The sheer vastness of the play is perhaps its weakest point: with so many characters to reckon with, the audience's sympathy is stretched thin. With almost no history or background to fill them out, much of the ensemble are reduced to 2D caricatures, brought onstage merely to elicit some hollow laughs about the drunken, debauched society they represent. Some of them hit the mark: Eileen Marsh does a brilliant turn as a barmy Boxing Day evangelist Madge, and Patricia England makes a charmingly dotty Julia, mastering an extended joke about Siegfried Sassoon. Others fall short, with genuine feeling lost in all the posturing and hamminess.

Charles Edwards as Hugh Marriner. Photo: Johan Persson

The production's brilliance lies chiefly in the hands of its three protagonists, and none more so than Charles Edwards as the harried writer Hugh Marriner. Lovelorn and desperate, Edwards expertly shifts between the layers of Marriner's psyche, the words tripping off his tongue as he moves from  from plaintive appeals for affection, to needling requests for cash, to virulent exclamations of anger, all at lightning-speed. He offers an authenticity of character that seems lacking elsewhere in the piece, backed up by Sinéad Matthews as femme-fatale Elizabeth Collier and Kate Fleetwood as the woe-begotten proprietress, Christine.

Kate Fleetwood as Christine Fockett. Photo: Johan Persson

Despite appearances, Absolute Hell is not all black-market scotch and orgies,  and Director Joe Hill-Gibbons brings out the more poignant elements of Ackland's script to land sufficient blows on the audience. The references to the Holocaust (thought to be one of the earliest in British theatre) are chilling even in their sparseness, and there is painfully resonant relevance in Elizabeth Collier's insistence that, if she'd only gotten round to voting, she might have been able to make a difference to her country. The gay music and silliness are a garish reminder of the destruction they are ignoring outside of the crumbling building, and as they say themselves, they all go to La Vie en Rose to escape reality. This element is brilliant reflected in Lizzie Clachan's set design: a large mirror dominates one wall, in order to cover up the bomb damage from the Blitz. With the war and the world held successfully at bay, all the clientele can see are themselves.

Absolute Hell runs at the Lyttelton, National Theatre until 16 June. You can buy tickets on the official website.  
All photos (c) Johan Persson, courtesy of the National Theatre

It might not be a huge exaggeration to say that in the current cultural climate, opera is the art form that needs to fight hardest to survive. With a financial crisis and dwindling audience numbers to contend with, opera companies have learnt the hard way that one must be relevant or die. A night at the opera is no longer the aspirational social goal it once was: society has changed and people have changed. With the multiplicity of artistic platforms available to modern audiences, opera has become the past-time and privilege (literally) of the few: those who are generous enough to give the butler a night off when they head to Covent Garden.

The English National Opera is determined to change this, by challenging several key areas that are alienating modern audiences. Firstly, opera’s relevance. A genre defined by constant revivals of the same productions needs to make a convincing argument that it is keeping up with the times. Artistic Director Daniel Kramer hopes that the upcoming season (featuring five original works) will provoke conversation, in particular in relation to diversity and gender parity. He has chosen works that will question and challenge patriarchal structures, beginning with a “radical feminine reading” of Strauss’ Salome, with Australian director Adena Jacobs.

Jack the Ripper - The Women of Whitechapel, Photo: Matt Davis

Feminine perspectives are also highlighted in The Merry Widow (aka 'How to date a woman with money') and a brand new opera by Iain Bell: Jack the Ripper. Given the tendency in modern drama to look at women through the lens of violence (in which rape and murder essentially become entertainment) this choice might raise a few eyebrows. Kramer, however, is quick to point out that the key part of this opera is the subtitle: The women of Whitechapel. The Ripper himself never appears on stage, the entire story told instead by his victims, a collection of the grand dames of the British opera world, including Lesley Garrett and Dame Josephine Barstow. (“It’s going to be an interesting rehearsal room” quips ENO’s Musical Director Martyn Brabbins.) This is a narrative of empowerment, not powerlessness, Garrett insists, seeing it as an opportunity for wronged women to stand up and say “We are powerful, we are strong. You cannot do this to us anymore.” In the wake of the #Metoo movement, the piece could not be more necessary.

The ENO has also taken up the challenge to diversify and feature narratives beyond those of the white and privileged. The first of these is Porgy and Bess, which receives its premiere at the Coliseum this autumn. Kramer describes the production as part of the “diversification of the opera house” with the hope of reflecting the culture that exists outside its walls. Rather than using the ENO chorus, the piece features a cast of 40 hand-picked singers and is conducted by Gershwin maestro John Wilson, who says he has been “waiting [his] whole life to conduct it”. A co-production with the New York Met and the Dutch National Opera, the production is one of several promoting international collaboration and communication. Another of these is Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, produced in collaboration with the Turner Prize-winning German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans. The ENO chorus will join the cast of Porgy and Bess for this landmark production discussing contemporary issues of nationalism and war, creating an enormous group of voices “singing for peace and singing for grief”.

La bohème, Artwork: Louisa Parry

Alongside these new works, the upcoming season will feature four revivals of past productions. Jonathan Miller’s quintessential production of La bohème receives its fourth showing, alongside Simon McBurney’s The Magic Flute, David Alden’s Lucia di Lammermoor and Phillip Glass’ Olivier award-winning Akhnaten. Speaking of old favourites, in celebration of the ENO’s fiftieth year at the Coliseum, a special gala called Opera for All will be held in October, featuring works that have played a crucial role in the company’s history.

Of course, it’s one thing for artistic directors to schedule provocative works, but a whole other challenge to bring in new audiences to watch them, and Kramer and recently-appointed CEO Stuart Murphy are determined to rise to the challenge. The first action is pricing, and they are selling over 42,000 tickets at £20 or less, as well as discounts for young people and special evenings for those new to opera. But they are smart enough to know that it takes more than cheap tickets to bring people in, so the ENO is going to them. Thus two new external collaborations have been announced: an adaptation of Dido and Anaeas with renowned children’s theatre, the Unicorn, and Noye’s Fludde at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. These, alongside a host of initiatives through the Baylis programme (including several artist development schemes) are aimed at showing people of all ages and backgrounds that opera is for them, too.

Porgy and Bess, Photo: Rachel Smith

At its heart, opera is about the expression of human emotion using the body as an instrument. Stripped of the pretension and elitism with which it is associated, it is a raw, powerful tool of self-expression, with the potential to profoundly affect all those who experience it. In this upcoming season, the ENO have proved their intention to change the opera landscape, remoulding it as an inclusive, not exclusive art form. As they state in their season headline: “A new age dawns./As love redeems and reconciles/The power of community rises.”

Anyone who's seen Heath Ledger's performance of the Joker knows that clowns are the stuff of nightmares. Why? Because they never stop smiling. We are both fascinated and repulsed by clowns, for who could look at a world as dark and damaged as ours, and do nothing but grin? This is what makes the plight of Grinpayne in The Grinning Man so ripe for theatrical exploitation. In a dark, dystopic London of the past, audiences escape their miserable lives by laughing at the face of a freakish boy, whose features were contorted into an eternal grin by an enemy he never knew. In the jaunty, grating and horribly memorable opening number, Laughter is the best medicine, we are reminded that the only way to forget the monsters in our heads is by 'rubber-necking some other bugger's grief.' Which is essentially what audiences at Trafalgar Studios are doing eight times a week, at the highly-acclaimed transfer of the Bristol Old Vic production.

The show-within-a-show format expertly blurs the lines between the emotions of those on stage and those in the audience. In the world of the story, spectators burst into fits of gleeful laughter at the sight of Grinpayne. They are both delighted and troubled by him: for though he has the face of a monster, there is 'heaven in his eyes'. His terrible affliction makes them forget their own troubles and allows them to share in his. 'And then with sudden clarity you are him and he is you, and then you see that all the people round you feel it too' sing the chorus. Looking around myself, it was clear that the real-life audience were definitely all "feeling it", many of them on their third or fourth visit. I had heard people chatting before curtain up about how much they loved the musical, how it made them laugh and cry. So what is it about this macabre, twisted, faintly grotesque musical that had them shaking with anticipation?

To be clear, the stage is set for horror: the proscenium arch transformed into a wide, gaping mouth; the costumes ripped, mismatched and generally filthy-looking. Tim Phillips and Mark Teitler's music has a creepy, organ-grinder edge, with many a shrieking, discordant moment. Julian Bleach's Barkilphedro, the resident jester and malcontent, slithers around the stage, dripping with disdain, his voice as soft and inviting as a mouthful of gravel. Elsewhere there's incest, disfigurement, torture, opiate addiction and a healthy use of expletives. 42nd Street it ain't.


And yet, The Grinning Man is unquestionably beautiful. Spectators at the seedy Trafalgar Fair, we learn of Grinpayne's tale through exquisite puppetry from War Horse's Gyre & Gimble. His mother lost at sea, the boy Grinpayne is left wandering the woods, when he finds a blind baby girl. He saves the child's life and comes upon a man named Ursus (an earnest, husky-voiced Sean Kingsley), who promises to look after them. Grinpayne and the girl, Dea, grow up together, and ultimately fall in love: a touching romance between two damaged children who cling to one another to survive. Now a young man, Grinpayne performs in a freak show, earning money to grant him and his family passage to another country. But he is haunted by his past, and swears to take his revenge on the man who disfigured him. Louis Maskell's performance in the title role is superb, he portrays Grinpayne's internal conflict with enormous pathos and sensitivity, which is all the more impressive given that his face is almost always covered by a mask. He moves about the stage as deftly as a shadow, his voice nothing short of spine-chilling. The pain of his injury threatens to overwhelm him, and is kept in check by a mysteriously potent medicine made by Ursus. Meanwhile, in the royal palace of Catford, sex-crazy Princess Josiana (a striking performance from Amanda Wilkin) is sent into fits of orgasmic pleasure at the sight of Grinpayne, who seems to embody the notion of 'pure feeling' that she has been searching for. Grinpayne's face makes him a celebrity, and, seated among the nobility, he must choose between living a life of ease and facing his demons.

Taking inspiration from Victor Hugo's L'homme qui rit, writer Carl Grose weaves a narrative that is part fairytale, part coming-of-age story, part horror show and part comedy. It may not look like your average, laugh-a-minute musical, but the jokes come thick and fast (top marks for Barkilphedros mid-number exclamation "I hate this pissing song!") and the audience just lap it up. But despite the humour, the fiendishly clever lyrics (a collaboration between Grose, director Tom Morris and the composers) prove that this is more than a fairy story on LSD. Act Two is a rollercoaster of emotion, and Morris pulls no punches in his exposure of human suffering.

Photo: Helen Maybanks via Facebook.com

Pain is woven into the very fabric of the story: grief, injury, heartbreak and injustice are at its core. Even without Grinpayne's eternal smile, The Grinning Man is suffused with nightmarish potential, showing us a world of decadence, driven by greed, in which innocent children are cruelly punished. Everyone on stage is lost: in the hypnotic solo, Labyrinth, Grinpayne questions whether he is nothing more than the mask he wears or whether his true self has been concealed beneath his scars. Rather than facing the demons that haunt him, he turns to the crimson leaf potion to drown the sorrow. The situation is desperate and painly relevant for a modern audience. Yet in Dea, the steadfast, moral core of the piece (played beautifully by Sanne Den Besten) Morris offers audiences a message of hope.
She may be blind, but Dea sees with more clarity that anyone. Grinpayne wants to run from pain, but Dea shows him that terror must be faced and embraced in order to move on. She demonstrates that neither revenge nor numbness can protect us from past suffering: they simply make us more lost. We may be 'shattered children' who were 'born broken', but Dea believes that our scars do not define us, they are merely part of us. It is love that gives us strength, and helps us find the courage to keep going.

The Grinning Man plays at Trafalgar Studios 1 until 5 May. You can find tickets on the official website.

Clodagh McKenna might just be one of the happiest people I’ve ever met. A bundle of enthusiasm, the queen of 'Irish soul food’ has a smile as sunny as her yellow blouse, her lilting voice frequently bursting into peals of excited laughter. And it seems she has plenty to be pleased about: her new recipe column in the Evening Standard is the latest of a string of successes in her twenty-year career in food. An alumna of the Ballymaloe Cookery School & House in County Cork, Clodagh started out by running farmers’ markets in Ireland, before penning five cookbooks, opening a restaurant, hosting numerous pop-ups and appearing on television across the world.

Her food is simple, seasonal and always stylish, presented with seemingly effortless grace. She passionately advocates eating with the seasons, for the sake of our health, the environment and our palates. So it is no surprise that the natural world is ever present in Clodagh’s food and styling: her home and kitchen are filled with wildflowers and bunches of dried leaves, her dishes elegantly garnished with petals and crushed herbs. Her unbridled joy at cooking with fresh ingredients is evident from the merest glimpse at any of her recipe videos: she handles every garden vegetable as though it were the finest saffron, inhaling the scent of a bunch of parsley as she might a Valentine’s bouquet. Her excitement is infectious.


As the US ambassador for Kerrygold, Clodagh spends much of her time in America, becoming the face of Irish food stateside, introducing television audiences to modern cuisine from the Emerald Isle. Despite a gruelling schedule that sees her splitting her time between London, Dublin, New York and Toronto, Clodagh insists she loves nothing more than having guests over for supper at home. ‘My heart fills with joy when I see everyone sat around my table enjoying my food’, she says.

These simple-yet-sophisticated meals, filled with the bounty of the season, have formed the basis of Clodagh’s latest cookbook and television series, Clodagh’s Suppers, which will be released in autumn 2018. In between her monthly transatlantic journeys, I met with Clodagh to learn about her food story and the ingredients for a perfect supper.


Can you summarise a supper at Clodagh's?

Cooking for people is one of my favourite things: it's how I socialise. I make everything: down to the syrup for the cocktail guests receive when they arrive. The menu is always based on seasonal ingredients, some of which are local and foraged. I cook everything personally; there isn’t a chef downstairs while I’m upstairs hosting.

So how do you go about planning them?

The first thing I do for the menu is to look at what’s in season and what I’ve been cooking for myself at home. I try to pick dishes that really sing of that particular time of the year, so, in autumn it would be apples, blackberries, figs or perhaps wild mushrooms. Then there’s the logistics of finding all the best producers. I always try and get one producer from Ireland, the rest I find locally; the best butchers, grocers and fishmongers in my area.



If people want to organise supper clubs themselves, what advice would you give them?

I would say, start off by making dinners for your friends, and organise them really well. You will always be stressed if you haven’t planned well enough. So, start by working out how many people you’re going to invite. Work back from there and plan the menu, your shopping lists and the tableware you’re going to use for each dish. Then organise your menu so that there is one course that needs your immediate attention before serving, and make the other two things that can be prepared beforehand and served straight away. If you do too many “stand-over” dishes then you’re not going to be able to do a good job. So only pick one that will require your attention for twenty minutes straight.

Happy International Women's Day!

In honour of this day, celebrating the lives and work of extraordinary women, I have written a blog about one of English literature's most famous heroines: Jane Eyre.

The piece, written for Bookishly, discusses whether Jane Eyre should be considered a 19th century feminist, or just a precursor for Anastasia Steele, in love with a Victorian Christian Grey.

You can find the original article here. If you agree with or strongly object to my thoughts, I'd love to know.

In the past few months I have written a variety of things. To-do lists, shopping lists, diary entries, translations, articles, recipes, poems (bad ones), work notes, play ideas, letters and several drafts of blog posts. When I don't write for a while my fingers start to itch, and I feel an overwhelming need to pick up a pen and scribble. The subject matter varies from the functional to the fictional, and occasionally I think I muster up a half-decent joke along the way. I currently have two foodie blog posts in draft-form, plus an interview waiting impatiently to be transcribed. Hopefully I'll get myself in gear at some point and finish them for this blog. In the meantime, there are other things to say.

If you've ever read this blog before you'll know how much food culture and history fascinate me, how they shape and reflect our society and tell us so much about ourselves. The thing is, I'm passionate about a lot of other things, too. Theatre. Books. Feminism. History. Mountains. Interesting words. And I'd like to write about those as well. Therefore, rather than setting up a new blog in order to indulge in these interests, I've decided to re-mould this one. So, from now on, Quirk and Spoon, will no longer be solely dedicated to food writing. It will definitely still include it (so help me if I don't get round to finishing that piece on porridge), but there'll be other things popping up every so often. Thoughts on a novel, a theatre review, a meditation on a trip or an unusual object, perhaps. Who knows? The plan is to be flexible, and, if possible, eloquent. So watch this space. I'll be back soon.

In 2012 a small restaurant called Honey & Co. opened in London’s Warren Street, a stone’s throw from the BT tower. Married Israeli co-owners Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, both successful professional chefs, set up the business on a hope and a prayer, with a tiny budget and secondhand furniture. Their concept was Middle Eastern home cooking, a mix of traditional mezze with simple stews and salads, showcasing the region’s quintessential ingredients and spices: sticky-sour pomegranate molasses, fragrant orange blossom, fiery Aleppo pepper and lots and lots of bulgar wheat.

The menu featured dishes such as apricot and pistachio tabouleh, smoky aubergine dip, slow cooked lamb with saffron rice, prawn tagine with preserved lemon and a whole host of exquisite homemade pastries and cakes. With bare walls and just ten tables they described their project as “a desperate act of faith.” Five years later, with glowing reviews, several awards, two cookbooks, a deli and a grill restaurant all under their belts, I think it’s fair to say that their prayers were answered.