Edinburgh Fringe 2026
Dinner With The Wolves
Bread and Butter Productions
Genre: Dark Comedy, Theatre
Venue: Greenside @ George Street
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
Twenty years ago, Arthur, Jesse and four of their best pals took a sybaritic trip to Cabourg, the holiday of a lifetime, or so it seemed at the time. But one person didn’t come back. Fast forward to the present and Emily and Arthur (provided his flight lands on time) are hosting Emily’s sister Hannah, partner Rob and long-time friend Freddy to reflect back on that hedonist experience.
Review
We’re in in an elegant East London duplex, or what passes for it at Greenside George Street’s Jade Studio bolt-hole, where a dining table is elegantly set for four old friends, who are about to be forced on a trip down memory lane by their somewhat anxious host. You see, Emily has an agenda, one that inexorably emerges in what turns out to be an evening fuelled by too much alcohol and too much misdirected laughter – a tale that’s an examination of what friendship really involves, how power can be weaponised and monetised and, at another level, the challenges of 21st Century masculinity.
Dinner With The Wolves is Bread and Butter Productions’ latest work to hit the Fringe, and what a stunning piece of theatre writer-producers Polly Hoban and Jake Butterworth have produced, a visceral piece of scripting that is horribly redolent of several business scandals that have spread distress and real harm across a wide diaspora in the last decade.
Twenty years ago, Arthur, Jesse and four of their best pals took a sybaritic trip to Cabourg, the holiday of a lifetime, or so it seemed at the time. But one person didn’t come back. Fast forward to the present and Emily and Arthur (provided his flight lands on time) are hosting Emily’s sister Hannah, partner Rob and long-time friend Freddy to reflect back on that hedonist experience.
In what transpires as a labyrinthine plot with more twists and turns than a large maze, it’s increasingly evident that there’s “history” in every possible combination of relationships across the quartet, which was deftly explored courtesy of some rapid transitions in and out of the off-stage kitchen by each of the characters. Great plot device, seamless delivery, just one of a number of pleasing aspects about this tense and eery piece of theatre.
Clues as to what actually happened on the holiday feed into the conversations like drops from a leaking tap; Fred (or Freddy) has a back story with more holes in it than a Swiss cheese; Hannah has something of a skeleton in the closet, one that sister Emily finds a little too close for comfort; Rob’s distress the way his company is going is positioning him on a collision course with his owner boss; Emily seems particularly on edge, yet refuses to open up.
But alcohol further loosens tongues and inhibitions as they drink a favourite toast of theirs : ‘may we get what we want, may we get what we need but may we never get what we deserve’, a prelude to the consummately delivered, chilling denouement.
This is a high grade thriller of a show. The script is tight, the staging excellent, the acting right out of the top drawer. Eloise Webb is wonderfully pretentious as Emily, plenty of false bonhomie with that quintessential southern English hint of snobbishness. Claudia Pope (Hannah) alternately spits rivets or exudes true charm, depending on with whom she is in conversation. Joe Kelly is appropriately earnest as Rob, clearly having moral concerns at the way his organisation is moving and what efficacy claims it’s making for its product. Jack Symonds as Fred (or Freddy) is a born hedonist, with a hint of narcissism lobbed in for good measure. Amir Wilson (Arthur) and Jake Butterworth (Jesse) complete the cast, delivering what are relatively small but quite pivotal roles with raw emotion that sticks in the mind.
The PR blurb requesting a review described Bread and Butter Productions as a “fringe theatre company whose bread and butter is creating fresh, challenging and exciting work.” Dinner With The Wolves most certainly meets the bill, and more. Highly recommended viewing.
