Review: HUNGRY, Soho Theatre
Photo credit: The Other Richard
After an acclaimed 2021 run at Roundabout, Chris Bush’s darkly funny and unflinchingly probing Hungry makes its Soho Theatre debut.
A play about ‘what we eat and who we love’, Hungry serves up a meaty exploration of class, queerness and gentrification through the relationship of Bex and Lori - a waitress and a gourmet chef.
Bush’s script is a densely packed commentary on food and how our relationship with what we eat, where we eat it and who we eat it with reflects and influences so many aspects of our culture. But around this discourse is room for a tender, funny and authentic representation of queer women’s relationships.
Melissa Lowe and Eleanor Sutton are a brilliantly matched double act - juggling the shifting power dynamics and fiercely fought debate that underpins Bush’s play.
Lowe is utterly captivating as Bex - the energy and passion in her performance completely unwavering. Even as Bex admits to losing her identity in her relationship with Lori, Lowe commands the stage and the audience feels sure and secure in her eloquent rage.
Sutton is delightfully, squirmingly awkward and hide-your-face-in-your-hands funny as the flustered chef Lori, a character most adept at putting her foot in it and then digging her heels in.
Katie Posner’s direction matches the pace of Bush’s script and makes excellent use of levels and minimal set pieces to highlight the undulating and shifting power in Lori and Bex’s often turbulent relationship.
As the play progresses, Lori becomes increasingly irredeemable and her stubbornly uncompromising stance on food culture and appropriation is hard to sympathise with but there is certainly enough food for thought to chew over in the bar after the bows. This show feels right at home in the Soho Theatre, in a ‘foodie’ city relentlessly hellbent on gentrification and indiscriminately bastardising every kind of food culture.
Bush cuts to the heart of human relationships through the stomach with Hungry - a rich, delicious and bitterly funny drama about food, grief and all kinds of love. (Perhaps this play is due a PSA to eat beforehand - otherwise you might be left feeling slightly peckish.)
**** Four stars
Reviewed by: Livvy Perrett
Hungry plays at Soho Theatre until 30 July, with tickets available here.