How to Make a Mess
Rating: ★★★
Venue: Upstairs at the Gatehouse, London

When Anna’s estranged mother dies, she skips sitting shiva and immerses herself in Nigella Lawson’s seminal cookbook How To Eat, somehow summoning an imagined Nigella as her guide.

Folding together heartache and humour, Anna rediscovers the joys of living, learning, and—most importantly—eating, one recipe at a time.

While there was nothing wrong with this musical, there was unfortunately nothing particularly incredible about it either. 

Advertised as a production full of ‘heartache and humour’, it was hard to fully connect with either of these emotions as we seemed to ping pong between both too quickly to really live in either of them enough to warrant a laugh or a sob. It was evident I was not the only audience member who felt this way about the direction by Grace Taylor as there was very little audible engagement despite an announcement at the start of the show actively encouraging us to do so.

The cast had clear and consistent vocals, but were missing any form variation. We had the limited choice of a raspy belt, an (albeit easily accessed) mix voice from Natasha Karp, or a more classical sound from Tanya Truman. The character arcs suffered a similar fate, with each woman given a few clear qualities, but missing any subtext or emotional depth. The costume design was also unproductive, as everything was very basic and didn't add any further insight into their personality or interests.

Credit must be given to Chris McDonnell (lighting designer) who has managed to create a gorgeous platform on which to present this piece, and to the stage management team for navigating such a prop heavy track so smoothly.

While the feelings of our protagonist changes over the two and a half hours, who she is does not. This makes for quite a superficial experience as an audience member, and it appears to negatively affect the performers too - with both seemingly very aware of the audience throughout the show, making often awkward eye contact or scuppering previously established eyelines in favour of glancing at someone in the auditorium. 

The music by Emily Rose Simons is well written, but her accompanying lyrics are completely unsuited. Big ballads and comedic numbers should not both be centred around mayonnaise and, with lines that don't rhyme and syllables that don't fit, it was hard to find most of the songs either funny or fervent.

Finishing nearly 20 minutes later than the billed run time, I spent the second half of act 2 eagerly anticipating the final number, but really wish I hadn't as the ending was pretty predictable anyway.

Overall, the content was slightly lacklustre but the same cannot be said about the performance quality - with both actresses doing their absolute most with the materials they were given. The main concern is that the industry is currently so oversaturated with new work, it is difficult to see why this one should or needs to exist. I did not leave the theatre thinking or feeling anything new or inspiring, which felt disappointing in the current landscape of the arts.

You can book tickets to How to Make a Mess, here.

Review by Katie

**photo credit: Danny Kaan**