Interviews

Sam Bompas: You'll be hard-pushed to avoid worms at Dinner at the Twits

One half of madcap experimental food artists Bompas & Parr explains what we can expect from dining out at their upcoming theatre adventure with Les Enfants Terrible

Daisy Bowie-Sell

London London's West End

01 September 2016

How did you get involved with Dinner at the Twits?
It was all quite magical. All the people involved – Les Enfants, the guys from Creature and Emma Bruge Productions – seemed to email me at exactly the same time. Happily, I had actually been to Les Enfants’ Alice in Wonderland at The Vaults. I liked it so much, I went twice. So I think I got back to their emails in about two and a half minutes.

When you founded Bompas & Parr in 2007 did you ever think you’d be working on a theatre piece like this?
Our ambition has always been to do the most full-on catering experiences possible. With any form of catering there’s a lot of ritual, there’s a sense of theatre to it. This is the first time we’ve been able to collaborate with an actual theatre company, but we’re very comfortable working with set designers, costuming, scripting.

Are you a big Roald Dahl fan?
The very first cook book I ever had was the Quentin Blake illustrated Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes which is phenomenal.

We’ve heard a little bit about you using yeast from Roald Dahl’s writing chair to make beer…
It’s absolutely insane. A lot of contemporary science looks at how your microflora and fauna, your gut bacteria, might have a profound impact on your personality. The people coming to this are getting a good dose of Dahl’s own micro-organisms. So perhaps that means we’re about to have a new golden era of children’s writing in the UK.

You think that the people drinking the beer may take on a bit of Roald Dahl?
One can hope. At the very least I’d hope they will be inspired by it. And what’s the point of a fine ale if not to inspire?

Did you just turn up at the Dahl museum with a swab?
I rang up the museum and the estate and told them my idea. Realistically, I thought they were going to say: "no way". But I have never had any concept signed off so quickly. We got our drinks magus all scrubbed up, so there was no risk of cross contamination and got him some sterile swabs. We put him in a hair net and a hazmat suit and then he just rummaged down the back of the writing chair. We sent it off to the lab, the lab then cultivated all the micro-organisms. There was some good yeast, some stuff that would turn the beer sour and there was some stuff there that would actually probably give you food poisioning so we’re not using that.

What form does Dinner at the Twits take, is it all round a table?
The narrative is all Les Enfants, but it starts off with more of a garden party setting and then you move to a more formal banquet. There are some really big theatrical moments, some nice processions and there’s some of the hottest food you’ll ever taste. The book is a lot about disgust. Five year-old kids are regularly disgusted by the food they have to eat, and that’s actually because children have way more sensitive palates. In the early days we worked with a psychologist to look at how food is used in forming groups and social identity. Then we used all that to help distil and ferment ideas around what we can put on the menu.

Adam Lock with Roald Dahl's writing chair
© STEVE RYAN

So there’s beer made from Roald Dahl yeast, what else can we expect?
You would be hard pressed to get out of Dinner at The Twits without eating worms. Our philosophy is about pushing people to the limit in terms of disgust. Then when they have overcome that initial reluctance they actually find they have something rather delicious. There’s a lot of snacks you don’t have to eat but would be good if you did. There’s wonderful pig’s ear, I’m addicted to it. There are live insects involved, which you can choose to eat or not (but it’s totally safe if you do choose to eat them). There’s also a lot of pranks in the meal so beware of traps. When everyone arrives they will get a stinging nettle gin and tonic which includes an actual bunch of stinging nettles but they are baby stinging nettles so they don’t sting that much.

Are things going to taste a bit gross?
It’s really paramount that they all taste nice. But we are making sure that people have quite an interesting experience en route to a nice dish.

What’s been something that’s taken a long time to achieve?
In one of the potato dishes we are going to be serving a cleaned out rat’s skull. Finding a really good source of rat skulls has proved quite challenging. We found a man who sells them for not too much money. He gets his flesh-eating beetles, to de-flesh the skull and clean them. Needless to say before they go anywhere near the food they are thoroughly, thoroughly sterilised.