FringeReview Scotland 2025

Chef

Ayr Gaiety Theatre

Genre: One Person Show

Venue: Cumbernauld Theatre at the Lantern House

Festival: FringeReview Scotland

Low Down

Review

In many ways revivals are de rigueur at the moment for many theatre companies the length and breadth of Scotland. With a couple of Millers beginning the year in Glasgow here, a hit from 2014 has returned.

Many metaphorical kitchen clichés aside – I shall apologise here for each and every one – Chef does attempt to demonstrate how the loneliness and uniqueness of being a single-minded chef can be challenging. Here we have our protagonist making missteps and taking both wrong and right directions, which given the trauma that this particular chef has suffered in her past this is far from surprising. But the various effects of that trauma, and the evidence of it felt a little pick and mix, rather than a progressional route towards understanding.

That trauma included from an overbearing father who attempted at one point in the middle of the North Sea to strangle the very life out of her, where one of her brigade manages to commit suicide in her own kitchen, the Friday night Chinese uneaten due to domestic violence and abuse suffered by her mother, this is a dramatic attempt at trying to cover a plethora of issues within the context of a one-woman show. To that end it has a large sweep of effects and ideas, left hanging in the pantry rather than fully made into a meal fit for us to consume.

Coming in various sections with titles which included Yellowtail Sashimi and Hibiscus Jasmine Sorbet and begun with a Perfect Peach monologue, it ends with the aphorism to simply Be Gentle. These were projected on the back of the set which, admirable as the message was it doesn’t manage to deliver as well as it did over a decade ago. I was interested to read in the notes from Andre Agius, the director just exactly why he had chosen to resurrect Chef. Having read it during the pandemic, a lot of introspection is what some have indulged in during that time before we emerged from our isolation back into the world that was meant to be different but seems scarily like what it was before. I think that, given the changes that we have seen, over the last 10 years of how we view service industry staff not just through the pandemic but also the travails of people like Heston Blumenthal it could have been doing with a decent refresh to perhaps bring us further up to date of how this industry has become a haven for those who have struggled. It speaks of its time, but does it have universal purchase?

Given the hefty issues, however, this was an exceptionally subtle performance contained within a layered piece of narrative that didn’t quite manage to keep those layers distinct but at the same time managed to create a flow between them. The pace and tone at times fell off and whilst I think this was a really admirable attempt to bring back to our attention what Sabrina Mahfouz had highlighted it was perhaps too much to ask of this zeitgeisty piece of theatre from 2014 to manage to translate completely to 2025.

I am aware that Agus has been highlighted by The Stage as a director to watch and here there were moments that I felt that that promise was beginning to mature followed by times when I really thought that Rebecca Benson, as the chef, was left a little flagging between the various emotional strains of the depiction of chef.

Benson herself is a nuanced performer and much of the subtlety that came across was due to the fact that she had the ability to touch upon those areas and issues and not end up overblowing them.

Unfortunately, I think that with a stronger hand on the tiller it would have been far more effective to feel that she was not just going from one crisis to another but developing character led responses to those crises. It was painful when she was not quite getting the laughs when she was being funny. I also felt that some of the language didn’t land particularly well in the evening that I was there.

One of the massive pluses however for me was walking in to see Yvonne Strain on stage already, participating as a performer as well as giving us the BSL interpretation. The Gaiety Theatre in there has to be commended that the pantomime at Christmas for which they are up for a Stage Award, was not a one-off, not a flash in the pan and not some kind of box ticking exercise to the BSL and deaf and disabled actors that are out there. Yvonne, if she does not already have an equity card, should have an honorary one and I was made to reflect it that I had seen Moorcroft on this stage a year or so ago and I also mentioned just how fantastic it was to see Yvonne integrating herself with that company, allowing her to become part of the storytelling in an inclusive manner. Here again I really felt that both Rebecca Benson and Yvonne Strain were telling a single story, and this was not an addendum. It is important that the BSL interpretation does not become a now and again, soon we shall try and integrate, often, and not often enough part of Scottish theatre. It should not be left to Solar Bear to carry this mantle and the more that come to see this as an integrative part of how Scottish theatre is dynamic in telling its story the better. Having said that I was also glad to see Robert Softly-Gale down the front turning up in order to support that development and more of us who are able-bodied and do not have any disability should be championing the opportunity for increasing integration within our craft.

As for the set I found that the lighting at the back was too strong for someone like me because I have eyes that take in too much light so by the end of the show, I was beginning to feel the eye strain and the coming on of a headache. It was very dramatic and well done but the projection through the overhead projector was not as effective as I thought it was going to be – being a little old school I was overly excited to see one back on a stage and being in use – but it was projected onto something that made it difficult to see what it was that you were supposed to read.

But this was a bold move by The Gaiety bringing this back out with an aspiring director and even if it didn’t manage to hit the success that it did 11 years ago that at least we have the opportunity of revisiting this. I do think that it could do with a little bit of an upgrade in how trauma affects people in their choice not only of careers but how they have to deal with the mental health issues that don’t scream out of them but scream at them.

Published March 17, 2025 by Donald Stewart