Hungry

Food is personal, political and problematic in Chris Bush’s new play Hungry.

Lori (Eleanor Sutton) and Bex (Leah St Luce) work either side of the kitchen service platform – Lori is a professional chef and Bex her server for the evening. After a passionate encounter in the walk-in fridge, they begin a relationship, but social incompatibilities and differing life aspirations drive a wedge between them, with food becoming a symbol of all that separates them.

Part of Paines Plough’s Roundabout 2021 season, the play is sensitive, confronting and seriously funny. One-liners highlight Lori’s snobbish attitude towards food – “It’s not a mousse, it’s a marquise” – while Bex defends her mother’s love of processed family meals, with smiley faces replacing roast potatoes for Christmas dinner. But, as the play progresses, the significance of food in their relationship becomes something darker – a means of control and suppression.

Over, between and around kitchen trolleys the couple consummate their love, fighting and struggling to be heard. The chemistry between Sutton and St Luce is electric, heightened by the intense in-the-round setting, gently lit by designer Richard Howell. At first, the shifts between blue and orange hues to delineate different time periods are a little disorientating, but Bush’s smart writing makes it clear that we are jumping between the past and present.

Katie Posner’s production taps into all the senses – you can smell a grilled cheese sandwich being toasted on stage, and crushed handfuls of crisps coat the floor. The experience is visceral, messy and emotional.

St Luce gives a shattering performance as Bex, tired by the world’s inequalities and trying to make Lori (passionately played by Sutton) recognise her prejudice. Bex’s comments are uncomfortable and honest about the toxic power of gentrification, class and race, and a broken system that fails to give women like her a chance.

Like the best theatre, Hungry is reflective and thought-provoking – and a call for change.

Hungry is playing as part of Paines Plough’s Roundabout 2021 season until October 17.