Book, Music, and Lyrics: Emily Rose Simons
Director: Grace Taylor
“This isn’t just a musical. This… is a Nigella Lawson musical,” the show blurb for Emily Rose Simons’ How To Make A Mess claims, with a hint of the breathy conspiratorial voluptuousness of the TV chef herself. Except that the British national treasure in question has nothing to do with the show, it being subtitled A Totally Unauthorised Love Letter to Nigella Lawson. Performer and producer Tanya Truman certainly looks like the domestic goddess and probably sings a great deal better, but unless you are a fully fledged fan of the soon-to-be Great British Bake Off judge, or of tribute shows in general, you may find yourself idly wondering what the point is.
First seen in work-in-progress format back in 2023, the musical two-hander has some decent songs courtesy of composer and lyricist Simons and the musical director and arranger, David Merriman. The performances are great, too, as are Josie Campbell’s cello and Ruth Whybrow’s reeds. The problem is that the plot – a young woman navigating the grief of losing a mother whilst trying to bake cakes and make mayonnaise – struggles to sustain the weight of a two-hander that, at least on press night, runs for 2 hours and 15 minutes. Absent ensemble numbers to inject energy and, much in the way of scene changes, to distract the eye, the narrative feels decidedly undercooked.
Anna (Natasha Karp) is a 30-something senior manager for a communications company whose life involves sleeping, working, going out, smoking weed, and an occasional friends-with-benefits liaison with an unseen lover. From the outside, her life looks thin, a state characterised metaphorically by her entirely empty cupboards and fridge. But the woman, who survives on endless takeaways from Uber Eats, is seemingly content with what she has, a sentiment expressed in the catchy opening number All Mine.
Freshly home from a surprise birthday dinner, laden with gifts that include condoms and a sex toy, Anna gets a bad news call from her depressed and terminally ill mum’s hospice in Croydon. She knows she should sit shiva for a week with her more or less estranged dad, but pain at Mum’s loss leads her into something of a breakdown. Dodging work and family calls, burdened with grief, she begins to question her life and her difficult relationships with both her parents.
At this point, Nigella (Tanya Truman), dressed in crimson and bearing a fluffy feather boa, makes a comic entrance singing a cabaret-infused number called Welcome To My Kitchen. Nigella is a kind of fairy godmother/guardian angel/therapist brought to life to aid Anna in dealing with her bereavement and reestablishing a connection with the father she blames for ruining her childhood. The queen of food porn’s strategy for helping the stricken Anna is to teach her how to make pea, mint and avocado salad, though the key to the recipe lies in recognising the importance of family and forgiveness. “I don’t cook, I go on dates with hot tourists”, protests Anna, but Nigella insists.
Will Anna, who has a high-power job and a flashy taupe kitchen featuring a contemporary, multi-functional kitchen island, find the strength to forgive, forget, and move on? We are strictly in Broadway musical territory here, which hints at where we are headed, though there is conflict along the way, best expressed in the anger-filled duet You Have No Idea, which closes the first half.
The show faces the challenge of balancing the sombre reality of grief with oodles of ‘Nigellaisms’ (mee-cro-wah-vay gets a look in) and camp, jazzy numbers about whisking eggs and roasting chicken. Director Grace Taylor mostly pulls it off, though there are times the tonal shifts threaten to jar.
Karp sings beautifully and brings roguish vulnerability to Anna, though we are never quite persuaded that a woman with her own London flat and a high-flying job does not know what a pinch of salt is. Truman sings tremendously, too, and brings plenty of Nigella’s tactile intimacy to the role. What is missing is the TV chef’s rich sense of self-parody, or any idea of her character, though we get a hint in the soul-searching duet Nothing Like My Mother.
Ultimately, there just isn’t enough of a story here to justify the show’s runtime and 17 songs, however well put together the tunes are. One yearns for a bit of editing.
Runs until 28 June 2026
