To Watch A Man Eat – Shakespeare North Playhouse, Prescot

Written by: Sadie Pearson

Director: Sadie Pearson/Hen Ryan

Tuck into this highly engaging and satisfyingly uncomfortable take on searching for satisfaction despite overconsumption, whether that be food, sex, money, success, or maybe just something a little bit different.

It’s impossible to draw your eyes away from the action which unfolds before us, and it’s a dangerously delicious feast. We’re served a platter of observations mainly scrutinising class, socioeconomic status, and gender. The interactions and disclosures to the audience, shared by the three characters, provides an insight into their psyche, this flow of subconsciousness is what adds the substance to the shock, driving this interesting piece of ‘in -yer-face’ theatre towards one to watch at the Edinburgh Fringe this August.

Written by Sadie Pearson and produced by Bristol based Full Frontal Theatre, they deliver a refreshing and original piece theatre, touching on themes including masculinity, mental health, suicide and identity, particularly from the perspective of class. The simple but effective red and black palette used for the costumes, props and lighting, is well utilised to create changes in scenes, mood and locations. Featuring the familiar wooden black boxes of a one act fringe show, they’re incorporated into the action adding different levels which compliments the flow of the action. The tropes expected in an in yer face theatre production, such as sex, swearing and subject matters such as suicide and violence, are featured but imperative to the narrative, and not just thrown in titillation.

We’re first introduced to likable narrator, blue-collar worker, the Tesco trifle loving Micky (George Usher) who finds joy in life’s simple pleasures, his friendly, unassuming persona recognises the universal vulnerability of the human experience, through his empathy found in his role as a firefighter.

In contrast, is the entitled gluttony of white collar nepo baby Andrew (George Lorimer), his salacious appetite for money, sex, and status, finds him literally sucking all the meat from the bone, with finger licking satisfaction. This city w**ker’s ‘bants’, and the hungry unzipping of his flies, creates a recoiling from the audience. Yet, the slow unravelling of his character, and his eventual epiphany seen through his relationship with girlfriend Melissa (Lily Walker), is well played by Lorimer who takes the character well beyond his yuppie stereotype.

Walker’s Melissa is confident, complicated and intelligent with a quiet air of instability. Melissa attempts to control her interpersonal relationships through her obsessive behaviours and emotional disassociation. A self-described fine artist, with a history of attachment issues, she uses sex and food as a way of control, which eventually eats her up, in some explosive scenes between Walker and Lorimer.

The direction in which the piece is heading is kept well hidden until the very end, in an eventual crescendo of violence. The one-hour show fits in a lot of ideas and concepts whilst also telling a story which keeps its audience on its toes and hungry, or rather gagging for more.

To Watch A Man Eat, is heading up to the Edinburgh Fringe from the 2^nd – 10^th August,