A gigantic banqueting table dominates the room, with members of the audience seated around it. A formidable chandelier shimmers above and the white tablecloth is adorned with plates, cutlery and wine glasses. Geoff Sobelle is our waiter for the night and his immersive show, co-directed with Lee Sunday Evans, is the picture of haute cuisine at the start.
The empty table triggers a Pavlovian response: what sumptuousness will we be served? More familiar morsels than a Babette’s Feast of ideas, it turns out. Although billed as a show combining smells, taste and touch, there is little here to fire up a foodie’s appetite as bowls of raw eggs, apples and a plastic fish are briefly put under our noses.
Neither is there a metaphorical breaking of bread around the table in any earnestness. Sobelle asks some to recount memories triggered by the wine he serves, and others to describe the last recipe they made. But these are brisk moments, played for comedy, and most of the audience participation is through prompt cards so he remains in control of the narrative. The fact that we are told what to say, how to tip, what food to order, renders the experience closer to manipulation than participation, with some of Sobelle’s punchlines coming at our expense.
He tells us that we are worldly, jet-setting diners and there is a touch of The Menu about the set-up, with its slightly dangerous air of unpredictability, at least for me (remember what happened to the critic in that film?). But this instruction also adds to the sense that we are Sobelle’s pawns, and not a genuinely active part of the show.
There are some clever illusions, co-created by Sobelle and Steve Cuiffo, such as when a diner is instructed to ask for a baked potato and the vegetable emerges from a seed dropped in a lump of earth. The making of an Arctic fish dish leads to a “wow” moment when the entire table is smoking with dry ice as Sobelle slides across it, like a skater, to catch the fish.
An eye-popping set piece of gluttony contains plenty of tricks that repel and entertain but brings a dramatic shift in the storytelling, too. What follows takes us from the beginning of time through a cross-generational arc of food production, supply and (over-)consumption.
There is a real sense of spectacle in this show but its point, didactically delivered, is rather too basic – and made with much more probing nuance in Chris van Telleken’s book Ultra Processed People. I walked out as hungry as I went in.
