Woman Who Cooked Her Husband

How many bad puns can you make about a gastronomic black comedy gone wrong? The menu of possibilities seems almost endless – and almost irresistible. Unpalatable, tasteless, overcooked, half-baked, all starter and no entrée, out of the frying pan into the fire, can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen…all these words and phrases come to mind before you even start to throw any rotten eggs, baking cakes or fallen soufflés into the mix. Add your own clichés here and stir gently over a low heat.

And so to Debbie Isitt’s three-hander The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband, which now receives its West End premiere a decade after it was first seen at the Edinburgh Festival, since when its played at the Royal Court and toured around the UK and the world. I’d like to report that, after so much time and energy, this transfer fully justified the effort – but that would be over-egging the pudding.

To be fair, it’s not a disaster, but the whole thing – play and production, which in both instances, leaves Isitt to blame as both author and director – is as obvious as any of the aforementioned culinary puns. The title itself rather gives the game away (though in misleading and unrewarding fashion) while the opening line and all that follows simply serve to reiterate the point.

In a desperate grab for his long-lost youth, middle-aged Kenneth (Michael Attwell) chooses to think with his penis rather than his stomach (as for his other organs, there’s no evidence he has either a heart or brain) and trades in his “sad, old, boring housewife” Hilary (Alison Steadman) for sexy young Laura (TV comedienne Daisy Donovan), a woman with a waist if no talent for cooking.

In case you’re in any doubt about who’s who, where they stand or what they’re feeling – which would be remarkable with a script that embraces repetition and a total lack of subtlety so wholeheartedly – Robert Jones‘ retro kitchen set (with inset video screen and velveteen table-cum-bed) and stylised party costumes (Hilary in envy green, Laura scarlet red) point the way.

Such misjudgements are mitigated by strong performances from the female leads. Steadman is a highly watchable Hilary, rearing from cosy jollity to self-denial, rage and murderous calculation with great comic timing. Despite some cringing memory lapses on the press night, Donovan manages to elicit sympathy for Laura and seizes her funny dance moments (even if the relevance of lip-synching to Elvis and other oldies is never clear).

None of which quite manages to rescue the casserole in a play that proves, sometimes, revenge is not best served cold.

– Terri Paddock