Fork In Review

The Beast was written by Eddie Perfect and staged at the Sydney Opera House. This is not a theatre review; I was looking at it from the point of view of food trends.  It is a wonderful comedy of manners which has a crack at the behaviour of food faddists.

Some food faddists follow the latest trends in food because it’s all over social media. Ultimately, this means the pressure is on farmers to uproot perfectly good crops and plant kale, for example. Then a year later it could be some other vegetable and fruit touted to be good for us, and on social media.

Eddie Perfect’s character wanted to know what was wrong with iceberg lettuce, and why it was surpassed on the food catwalk by rocket and mizuna etc. Hilarious.

The characters are ghastly, but it’s a satire so they probably have to be, particularly Michael, the arrogant and narcissistic prat. They all want a lifestyle which has all the trendy descriptors: back to the land, sustainable, organic, simpler, nose-to-tail and ethical. And they got what they deserved: laughed at.