What a feast for your senses. This show has everything to excite your primary needs; stories, smells and tastes.
This is a stage play based on the real-life harrowing experience of Atoosa Sepehr, a woman who had to flee Iran/Persia leaving behind all her family experiences and memories.
This stage adaptation has been written by Hannah Khalil, and is inspired by Atoosa Sepehr’s life story. It started life as a show from the Edinburgh Fringe in 2024 and has reemerged here in London at the Soho Theatre where it was on a sell-out run last year.
As we arrive in the auditorium there is food being prepared on stage, so you already feel that you are being included in the kitchen experience about to take place. The performance is a one woman show starring Isabella Nefar and directed by Chris White. Isabella Nefar is totally believable, and it was hard to imagine this was not Isabella’s story as she was passionate and convincing in every movement and cooking experience.
It was a delight to watch and listen. Isabella Nefar has such a lovely voice and her actions around the stage are almost dance like and well-choreographed. A one-woman performance that keeps you enthralled throughout. It is immersive as she interacts with the audience, asks us questions and gives out samples of herbs and things to smell and hold. Mint, Parsley, Dill, Turmeric. She weaves the story into her cooking, and it feels like we are being drawn into a spell; we fall into an unconscious dreamlike state absorbing the smells as they emanate from the stage. The lighting is well placed and directed and highlights so many areas of the stand-alone kitchen island. You can see the steam rising from the pot, you can imagine the fragrance of the herbs and then it hits you. The pots and pans light up the sparse set. No back drops needed here only the main kitchen surface, atop of the shelves and a large fridge. The set and lighting against the bare black surround works and nothing else is needed to set the scene.
It is incredible how the story has been interwoven between the food preparation and cooking experience. There are flashbacks and we move through time back into the kitchen again. Atoosa Sepehr has written a cookery book (signed copies were available to purchase after the show), and you can see the flavours and foods from her homeland of Iran/ Persia. The book shows the colours and the images we have already pictured from the storytelling on stage.
The performance tells of the importance of timing in cooking and in life. The small time slot Atoo had to escape a life where she was stifled and controlled and the sadness of leaving behind your parents. Arriving in cold grey London and searching for ingredients to remind you of home. When you have never cooked before, and you long for the memory of your mother’s cooking is heart breaking. Learning how to use ingredients to remake your memories and to hold your family close. Searching London for the best places to buy these authentic ingredients and how you are treated by your new neighbours. I loved this performance and my heart ached as I too have a mother who left her homeland to start a new life in London.
The cooking was used as a way of dealing with the grief and getting the recipe right meant that she was able to face the loss easier.
It is a 70 minute experience and the audience are welcomed onto the stage at the end to try the food that has been cooked right there in front of us. The small warm pot of food we were encouraged to try was soothing, comforting warm and wholesome. It was exactly how you imagine sharing of a pot of soup would be between the family. We were given the recipe to take away, and I will definitely be cooking this at home. I highly recommend this show, it is an experience beyond all others and with an actress who has a natural ability to keep you in the palm of her hand like the fragrant herbs throughout.
Running from Friday 3rd October - 11th October 2025
Reviewer - Penny Curran
On - 2nd October 2025
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