Thurs, 6 Oct, 19:00
1950s London. In the kitchen of an enormous West End restaurant, the orders are piling up: a post-war feast of soup, fish, cutlets, omelettes and fruit flans.
Fifteen hundred customers an’ half of them eating fish. I had to start work on a Friday.
Thrown together by their work, chefs, waitresses and porters from across Europe – English, Irish, German, Jewish – argue and flirt as they race to keep up. Peter, a high-spirited young cook, seems to thrive on the pressure. In between preparing dishes, he manages to strike up an affair with married waitress Monique, the whole time dreaming of a better life. But in the all-consuming clamour of the kitchen, nothing is far from the brink of collapse.
We all said we wouldn’t last the day, but tell me – what is there a man can’t get used to?
Folowing on from the Royal Court’s revival of Chicken Soup and Barley this summer, it is a good year for Wesker fans. The Kitchen premiered at the Royal Court in 1959 and has since been performed in over 30 countries. Bijan Sheibani will direct Wesker’s breakneck play about the chaotic lives of a group of young, rootless people from across the globe, brought together by work in a high pressure West End kitchen. Tom Brooke will star as cheery young cook Peter, who is conducting an affair with married waitress Monique.
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