A musical about Nigella Lawson makes sense – after all, the creamy-voiced, innuendo-spouting domestic goddess almost feels like a theatrical creation. Then again, inserting her indelible force into a production comes with challenges, especially when she isn’t the only star of the show – as in this fun but flawed two-hander written by Emily Rose Simons.
Anna’s estranged mother has just died and she is ignoring calls from her dad, who left when Anna was a child. As she opens his favourite cookbook, Nigella’s How to Eat, its exuberant author emerges from a spangly kitchen cupboard to help Anna process her grief, reconnect with her father and better care for herself – all by learning to cook.
It’s a tall order for a figment of Anna’s imagination or – given that Nigella can conjure thunderstorms and cancel trains – perhaps a magical entity? This nebulous Nigella is arguably the biggest problem in the production, directed by Grace Taylor. Tanya Truman’s performance resists all-out caricature, although there are Nigella-isms, to which Anna (Natasha Karp) provides an entertainingly wry counterpoint: “What are you doing to my fridge?” she deadpans as Nigella seductively hugs its door, describing a midnight snack like an orgy.
But nor is Nigella a human with whom Anna can truly connect. There are glimmers in the moving song Nothing Like My Mother, about both women’s difficult mums, but Nigella largely remains a plummy instructor against whom Anna petulantly rails – making the latter’s transformation feel implausible or, at the very least, inaccessibly internal.
The script also spends a little too long hammering home Anna’s backstory, emotional repression and disinterest in food, leaving scant time for actual cooking. I longed to see its healing powers in action on Christianna Mason’s kitchen set – therapeutic kneading of bread or the soul-nourishing indulgence of baking a cake for one – but, aside from some mayonnaise whisking, Anna’s growth as a cook and person is represented by meals pulled from cupboards.
Simons’s songs have a big Broadway heart, with fantastic singing from both leads. But the melodies aren’t distinctive enough to become earworms, and overlapping lines too often leave the (sometimes very funny) lyrics hard to make out.
The show’s ingredients are promising, and its ending is a sweet surprise, which folds in the culinary elements of Anna’s Jewish heritage. But it would benefit from more time in the test kitchen.
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At Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London, until 28 June
