BRIT Award nominee and Mercury Prize-shortlisted singer-songwriter Jessie Ware premieres her award-winning podcast, Table Manners. For the uninitiated, Jessie Ware hosts this podcast about food, family, and the beautiful art of having a chat, direct from her very own dinner table. With a little bit of help from her chef extraordinaire mum, Lennie, she entertains guests from the worlds of music, culture and politics, who drop by each week for a bite and a bit of a natter. Oversharing is guaranteed.
Today’s performance, the last of its three-day Fringe run, welcomes Grace Campbell to the table. The audience’s annoyance at the show being thirty minutes late in starting is soon abated thanks to the warmth of the duo’s interaction with the audience and their guest.
This sell-out show has not only a captive audience, but people who have paid good money to see them, due to their charm and allure. A female fan, who listens to the podcast in bed, had dragged her husband up from Barnsley in their caravan on the back of Jessie and Lennie promoting their show on their podcast. While the wife is satisfying her Table Manners appetite, she’s let her husband off the hook to enjoy a coffee and a spot of Al Murray later.
Jessie is engaging and Lennie is the warm, lovable type that all of us would love popping up in our own kitchens. Grace Campbell, daughter of Alistair, describes her appearance on Table Manners as ‘the best moment of my career’ and her delight is matched by the audience’s in hearing her hilarious and natural story-telling. She’s a charismatic guest, not averse to oversharing, from recounting how she got off with Jeremy Corbyn’s son in an attempt to ‘save the Labour Party’, to being mistaken for the daughter of Mick Hucknall by a policeman during the 2010 student-fee protests. Campbell’s vegetarianism gets a ribbing too from Lennie, but Mother Ware has secretly catered for her with some three-cheese muffins and a very moist, lemon-drizzle cake.
It’s a delightful hour of podcasting that totally works live for a Fringe format. For any Table Manners virgins, it won’t be long before this intrepid duo will have you eating out of their hands and downloading the latest episode. You’ll wish you were invited as a guest to this dinner party too.