EIF: FOOD

The Studio - 05/08/23

Title simple enough: one word, one syllable. What to expect? A lecture on ultra-processing? A cookery lesson? Something to eat?   

As I enter the studio it’s set with a vast tablecloth and some 30 place settings. But my seat is a couple of paces away. Pity: the actor in me always likes to participate. Ah well, I’m here to review, not to take part. 

Enter Geoff, low key, dressed as a waiter. He gives a mocking list of Scottish dishes (“Deep-fried something or other anybody?”), then a quick summary of more exotic cuisines before he takes us on a hypnotic trip: ourselves as children, as embryos, amphibia, protozoa, back to the dawn of life. The audience become putty in his hands.  

The hypnotist then becomes sommelier, offering wine-tasting to selected members of the tabled audience. He asks each one for comment; fills some glasses; those who decline get their glasses turned brusquely upside down. Then he offers menus, again only to some, with a whispered instruction. They call out an item, he produces it with a conjurer’s flip of the wrist. One calls for potato - he empties a bucket of earth onto the table, pours from a watering can. A moment later a hot potato emerges and is handed to that person who takes just a bite. Apples, celery sticks, cherry tomatoes, an Arctic fish for which Geoff had briefly turned into a polar explorer on the snow-white tablecloth, raw eggs, steak, a generous meal is lined up at the table’s end. He grabs an apple and leisurely scrunches it into his mouth. Then he chews the other apples, forces the celery down his throat, pops each tomato between his teeth with a pop, gnaws through the steak with that potato and, as an afterthought, grabs the bowl of eggs and down they go. The menus get crunched away too. And of course, the wine, two bottles, for which he lies on his back, upends each bottle and slurps it down in one go. Gone the polite air of irony and trickery.  

Now he drags the tablecloth away revealing a landscape of dark crumbly earth. He digs; out comes a toy buffalo, another, half a dozen. He patiently walks them round the field which was the dining table. Digs again, out comes a tiny tractor. As it self-propels across the field, up come row upon row of wheat. The buffalo look passively on. Another probe, still deeper, and his hand emerges black with oil. Derricks erupt and begin to rock in that American way. He hands out trucks to the table people who push them round the perimeter. Houses next, and it’s Small Town USA. He buries the buffalo. Skyscrapers push up, their windows lit. Not a word is said. Finally, he digs himself into the soil, disappearing as the lights dim. 

A moment halfway through encapsulates the overall impression. Geoff stands with his hands on an audience member’s shoulders who reels out a long list of edibles. Not logical, not even word association; it’s random, “octopus, mars bar, peppercorn, tea”. Hypnotism? An unseen prompt-sheet? Is he one of Geoff’s team? He speaks quietly, so someone (stage assistant? audience member?) brings over a mic to boost audibility. The show is full of such things: fascinating, moving, mysterious, redolent with hidden skill. Food will be forever different. 

Leaving the studio, appetite piqued, I join the Festival throng to eat fish and chips. 

Cover photo: Iain Masterton