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Bear with me: Sun Bear @ParkTheatre

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If The Light House is an uplifting tale of survival, Sarah Richardson’s Sun Bear gives a contrasting take on this. Sarah plays Katy. We’re introduced to Katy as she runs through a list of pet office peeves with her endlessly perky coworkers, particularly about coworkers stealing her pens. It’s a hilarious opening monologue that would have you wishing you had her as a coworker to help relieve you from the boredom of petty office politics.  But something is not quite right in the perfect petty office, where people work together well. And that is her. And despite her protesting that she is fine, the pet peeves and the outbursts are becoming more frequent. As the piece progresses, maybe the problem lies in a past relationship, where Katy had to be home by a particular hour, not stay out late with office colleagues and not be drunk enough not to answer his calls. Perhaps the perky office colleagues are trying to help, and perhaps Katy is trying to reach out for help. It has simple staging

Chop it up: Chef @Sohotheatre


One woman’s descent from a haute-cuisine head-chef to convicted inmate provides for some mouth watering entertainment in Sabrina Mahfouz’s Chef at the Soho Theatre. While it is not necessarily an unexpected journey, it provides enough interest for its short duration to make you wish you were not watching it on an empty stomach.

It all starts with a peach. With the simplest of ingredients,  Jade Anouka takes us through a range of courses that track her culinary career and the events that lead to her ending up in jail.

Food as her passion comes out more strongly in this piece than the stories of her troubled teenage years, domestic life and the need to keep things level while behind bars. The dialogue is so evocative of food, its preparation and presentation that it is bound to make you hungry.


There are also some smart witty lines in it: “The night is packed away into a black bin bag, tagged with a let’s not talk of that again, tomorrow will be better and maybe we should just get pizza.”

But you get the sense (particularly if you have ever watched any episodes of Orange is the New Black), that the troubled backdrop to extraordinary talented person behind bars has been covered more successfully elsewhere. And the shortness of the piece does not give it much time to delve deeply into anything.

Anouka is engaging throughout the piece as the cook with issues, and with a passion. And as a monologue and meditation on life choices and making art out of everyday activities it is fascinating.

It is a sparse production, with just a whiteboard covering the menu and the issues du jour and a stainless steel bench. But it is effective.

Chef was winner of an Edinburgh Fringe First 2014 and The Stage Awards for Acting Excellence. It is directed by Kirsty Patrick Ward and runs upstairs at the Soho Theatre until 4 July.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎

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