Ralph Oswick: Amuse Bouche

When I retired from Bath’s Natural Theatre Company, I helped form a little performance group with some creative pals.

Being of an epicurean bent, we called ourselves Amuse Bouche, with the aim of specialising in interactive food-related comedy.

We thought we had spotted a niche in the market for adding an extra ingredient to corporate banquets, arty weddings and cookery demonstrations.

A bit too niche perhaps. It was a difficult concept to market, so eventually our band of foodie thespians threw in the tea towel, as it were.

However, on the way we did have some notable successes. Our selfpromoted vicar’s tea party, which took place in a beautiful Bath garden, was a hoot.

There was a narrative of sorts, with the action taking place while the audience devoured a massive cream tea. Crisp linen and bunting abounded and eccentric characters came and went from all directions.

With echoes of the Reverend Wilbert Awdry, our vicar had a rather splendid garden railway, complete with tunnels and sound effects.

Naturally one of our characters ended up tied to the track as the miniature steam engine hove into view.

I played a psychopathic gardener who spent most of the time in the greenhouse polishing his vegetables and regaling anyone who peered in with such gems as ‘There’s nothing intrinsically funny about a cucumber!’

The audience seemed to really enjoy themselves, though I’m not sure if that was down to our acting abilities or the gargantuan pyramids of delicious sandwiches and cakes included in the ticket price!

Another Amuse Bouche stunt that went down a storm was our Shakespearean vignettes between courses at a Tudor banquet.

Set in an ancient Sussex barn, people had paid a fortune to learn how to prepare (and then scoff) accurate recreations of historic recipes.

We got to eat the food as well as serve it. Some of it was horrid but mostly it was interesting, verging on delicious.

As well as a hilarious audience participation version of the Most Lamentable Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, in which a particularly glamorous woman was roped in to play the infamous hole, a man stuck in an ass’s head struggled in vain to extricate himself and a lovelorn Juliet draped herself across unsuspecting husbands.

I had to read the shipping forecast in the manner of Gielgud’s King Lear (‘Blow winds, blow!’ for all you afficionados of the Bard).

A touching episode took place at that gig. As the audience filed in, I was required to sit on the steps of a gipsy caravan and bid them welcome in the guise of smock-wearing, gap-toothed mechanical.

I’d forgotten my yokel boots so the owner of the barn lent me his battered gardening boots.

As soon as I put them on, the gentleman’s aged collie started following me.

Turns out he was blind and smelling the boots, he though I was his master.

Thus, I sat on the steps of the caravan with my old faithful hound gazing lovingly up at me.

Audience immediately won over. Job done Mr Stanislavski!