Showing @ Underbelly Cowgate, Edinburgh until Sun 17 Aug @ 18:10
With privatised jails and campaigns to ban books, the life of British inmates is frequently discussed. Our protagonist is a chef in a women’s prison. She is also a prisoner. She talks the audience through her life both before and inside prison, and how her passion for cooking first developed.
The descriptive nature of Sabrina Mahfouz’s lyrical prose is laden with such lilting poeticism, the verbal utterances vividly burst with delectable imagery. The phrasings of both prison life and cookery have such considered detailing, they push a feeling of genuineness into the narrative.
However the text also contains violent and disheartening moments, touching on the politics of what leads to an individual’s incarceration. For these more toxic events, Chef’s (Jade Anouka) normally bubbly and affable persona, which is key in making the lighter themes enticing, physically hardens into a gruff, angular and moody delivery.
The text highlights how negative stereotypes will be associated with convicts without any background context being acknowledged. In this respect, the food represents an accurate metaphor for people: it can be good or bad, and can be made into nice or nasty meals – what matters is how the ingredients are treated.
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