EAT YOUR HEART OUT
Birmingham, Warwick, London
2009 - 2011
Way back when Blanch & Shock was still an unstructured, inchoate idea and we were struggling to work out what would be next after a few private dinner parties, we saw an ad posted by Kindle an all-girl theatre group in Birmingham, looking for cooks to collaborate on a grand theatrical project about disgust, fear and horror. We answered it nervously - we had no equipment and had only just chosen a name. A few calls and a visit to a Birmingham warehouse later and we had firm new friends and an exciting collaborative relationship that would produce a number of projects, the first and most prolific being Eat Your Heart Out. An immersive theatrical show in which the audience, playing a group of lost travellers in a post-apocalyptic land, was welcomed into a castle by a trio of grotesque cooks and the deranged housekeeper of a sinister Queen. An extraordinary set was built over six weeks from recycled junk, scavenged objects, pyrotechnics and a lorryload of dry leaves from the city's parks, and we built a kitchen to create the three course dinner that would be the final, gruesome act of the play.
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The Menu
Fish Pill
Guts Stew
Burnt Soil
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After a sold-out ten day run in Birmingham, iterations of the piece followed over the next two years in London and the Midlands. Kindle Theatre went on to become Kiln Theatre and continue to produce theatre and performances that defy categorisation but which are invariably hilarious, sinister, sexy and grotesque.
EAT YOUR HEART OUT Birmingham was supported by Arts Council England and the Sir Barry Jackson Trust. Development was supported by PILOT, China plate theatre, Stan’s Cafe and COACHWERKS.