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''Cooking with Elvis'' is a dark comedy by playwright
Lee Hall which was performed in 1999 in
Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...
.
The farce was adapted from a play written for the award-winning
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
Radio ''God's Country'' series and premiered in 1999 in Edinburgh. It was also performed at the
Edinburgh Festival
__NOTOC__
This is a list of arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland.
The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the Edinburgh Fe ...
in 2000, where it was highly acclaimed. Shortly afterwards it transferred to the
Whitehall Theatre
Trafalgar Theatre is a new West End theatre in Whitehall, near Trafalgar Square, in the City of Westminster, London. It is set to open in spring 2021 following a major multi-million pound restoration project aiming to reinstate it back to its ...
in London's West End in a production starring the comedian
Frank Skinner,
Sharon Percy
Sharon Percy (born 28 September 1971) is a British actress.
Biography
Percy was born 28 September 1971 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Percy started her acting career at the age of eight. She joined the youth theatre at the New Tyne Theatre ...
,
Charlie Hardwick and
Joe Caffrey.
According to Richard Paul Knowles, one of the most popular shows in Edinburgh in 1999 was "Lee Hall's anarchic ''Cooking with Elvis'', performed beneath one or three crystal chandeliers which hung next to a disco ball at one end of the Ballroom, a lush old gilded space in some decay at the heart of the Assembly Rooms. The show was by turns camp, comic horrific, and in-your-face, a tragic farce about child abuse, wife abuse, sex, loss and cooking."
The comedy centres on Dad (
Joe Caffrey), a famous
impersonator of rock 'n' roll star
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...
, who was paralyzed in a car crash and is now forced to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. Other characters include his anorexic, alcoholic wife Mam (
Charlie Hardwick), their fourteen-year-old daughter Jill (
Sharon Percy
Sharon Percy (born 28 September 1971) is a British actress.
Biography
Percy was born 28 September 1971 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. Percy started her acting career at the age of eight. She joined the youth theatre at the New Tyne Theatre ...
), and their young lover Stuart (
Frank Skinner).
Climaxes of the play are surreal fantasy scenes in which Dad's hallucinatory Elvis dreams are bursting into popular Presley songs as a reminiscence of his one-time persona of an Elvis impersonator. At one time, Dad, already dressed in his Elvis costume, leaps from his wheelchair and launches into an Elvis ballad. At other times a wardrobe door will be opened for Elvis to leap out and into another song with Mam and Jill as backup singers. In another scene, Singing Elvis becomes Reverend Elvis who starts making bizarre speeches about philosophy, drugs and sodomites - references to Presley's consumption of drugs and, according to reviewer Rich See, the gay rumors that continue to swirl around Presley, namely, his "obsession with
James Dean and his alleged affair with actor
Nick Adams." The glittering costumes in the play remind the viewer of the costumes worn by the
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
Elvis in the 1970s. For example, there are ornate belts with gold padlocks and many spangles.
Mam has an insatiable appetite for sex which can no longer be satisfied by her husband. Jill is primarily interested in cookery books. Mam is locked in a battle with her daughter, who disapproves of the fact that her mother has a very indiscreet sexual liaison with Stuart, a handsome young baker, in the marital home. Mam's sexual need is echoed in Jill’s appetite for food which leads to her being overweight. Brought home by Mam, Stuart soon figures in everyone's sex life, including the brain-damaged "Elvis" who seems to have at least one part of his anatomy functioning. After some trouble, the play has a deadly ending
''Cooking with Elvis'' has been compared to the early black farces of
Joe Orton.
References
External links
Lizzie Loveridge, "A Curtain up London Review: Cooking with Elvis"
{{Elvis Presley
Plays by Lee Hall (playwright)